


Reviews of AZ Fell and Co Antiquarian and Unusual Books

by IneffableFangirl_writes



Series: Yelp! Review Expansion Series (Reviews of AZ Fell and Co Antiquarian and Unusual Books) [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-06-25 01:08:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 33,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19735315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableFangirl_writes/pseuds/IneffableFangirl_writes
Summary: Based on the amazing image (linked as the inspiration). Each chapter is the story of a different Yelp review in the image.





	1. Lindsay F

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ItsClydeBitches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsClydeBitches/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Sparse Clutter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19364431) by [ItsClydeBitches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsClydeBitches/pseuds/ItsClydeBitches). 



_**Lindsay F.** _

_London, United Kingdom_  
_71 friends_  
_3000 reviews_  
_9874 photos_

  
_So I slipped into this place because I spotted my ex across the street and would have rather chugged a cocktail of bleach, lighter fluid, and a condensed solution of all my middle school years then talk to that asshole. Owner was on me the second I walked through the door and I thought he was gonna be one of those ‘Either buy something or get out’ types. Nah. I spilled the story, said I really wasn’t looking to purchase anything, and he LIT UP like nobody’s business. He gave me tea and promised I’d never run into my ex again. Which is a super sketchy promise on its own and also should have been hilarious coming from a guy a century behind in style._

_...Kinda believed him though._

**Reviews of AZ Fell and Co Antiquarian and Unusual Books**

Based on the reviews in this image: [ https://itsclydebitches.tumblr.com/post/186055292445/hey-all-remember-when-i-said-id-never-do-another ](https://itsclydebitches.tumblr.com/post/186055292445/hey-all-remember-when-i-said-id-never-do-another)

  


Lindsay F.

The bell on the door tinkled and Aziraphale looked up from the book he was currently examining for wear. It was new, well, new to him, the book was two hundred and five years old and something he'd been hunting after for a solid decade, waiting for it to come out of an owner's vault after his death and to be put up for sale by his son, who was wholly uninterested in books and was all too happy to accept the more-than-reasonable price that the angel offered for it. Now, lovingly unwrapping it from the brown paper, Aziraphale had just pulled on his cotton gloves to better examine the book when the bell on the door sounded.

The potential customer was a young woman, maybe mid-to-late twenties with long light brown hair and Aziraphale had, with the help of a quick miracle, appeared by her side before the door had even fully shut. 

“Sorry,” she said quickly, catching Aziraphale by surprise. “I’m sorry I just saw my ex outside on the street and I can’t run into him, I’d rather swallow a bag of nails.”

Aziraphale was instantly moved.

“Was he unkind to you?”

“He was a right arse is what he was. Cheated for one thing, and every other word out of his mouth was a lie.”

“That sounds awful! Come sit down my dear, let me make you a cup of tea.”

“That’s very nice, but you don’t have to.”

“I insist, do sit down. Do you take milk?”

“Just a touch,” the girl replied, as she found herself walking through the shop and sitting down on a squashy armchair near the counter.

“And sugar?”

“Two please.”

“I’ll just put the kettle on. What’s your name, dear?”

“Lindsay.”

“All right, let me go get that cup of tea and you can tell me all about this awful fellow.”

Bustling around the little kitchen in the back of the store, Aziraphale felt a little glow of satisfaction in his breast. He might not be under the command of Heaven any longer, but he could still do good. He could offer tea and a listening ear and guide trouble away from the people who came in. Provided they weren’t trying to purchase his books, of course. Really, he had to draw the line somewhere.

Adding a spot of milk to one cup and a good splash to the other, he retrieved the sugar bowl from the counter and added sugar as well before dropping a teabag in each cup.

The kettle clicked itself off and he poured water over two teabags, inhaling the rush of tea-scented steam. There was something inherently _good_ about a cup of tea. It was a wholly human invention but Aziraphale had nudged the process along, watched as different cultures developed tea ceremonies and gatherings where tea was the central reason for the function. Tea was a calm oasis in a world that was full of rapid, never-ending movement. 

He pulled the bags out and tossed them in the bin before gliding back into the bookshop, a cup in each hand.

“Here we are,” he said kindly, one might even say angelically, and handed her a cup. She curled her hands around it and took a sip, seeming unbothered by its temperature.

“It’s lovely, thank you.”

“Of course. Now, tell me about this young man.”

So Lindsay did. She told him about the early courtship, the flattery and the charm and the extravagant gestures. She told him about the almost magical ability the young man seemed to have to make her feel special, like the only person in the world who mattered to him. 

“That does sound very romantic,” Aziraphale agreed. “But it wasn’t always like that, was it?”

“He was one of those guys who liked the chase. While he was still dating me, it was like he was always trying to win me over with flowers or presents or fancy dates. And then once we’d been dating for a couple of months it just sort of...stopped.”

Aziraphale made an appropriately sympathetic noise.

“And for awhile it wasn’t so bad, you know?” She took another sip of tea. “It was fun being wooed like that but it was a lot. So when it calmed down and we were just hanging out, getting lunch or dinner, watching Netflix on my couch, it was nice. But then he was wanting to do that less and less and I thought, sure, he’s busy. Things happen, work and spending time with mates and all that. And then I’m out with a couple of my girlfriends and I spot him in a cafe having lunch with a girl. I’m not the jealous type or anything, he’s got friends that are girls, but as she gets up to leave and he lays one on her right there at the table.”

“The _bastard_!”

“Yes! But instead of confronting him right away, I ask him over later in the week and then I ask about it really casually. Don’t mention the kiss, just that I saw him at a cafe and he tries to tell me it’s his cousin visiting from out of town. Like that’s not the oldest excuse in the book. Like I’m some moron who’s never had a guy lie to her before. But when I bring that up suddenly he’s talking about how we never said we were exclusive and that he had needs and there were lots of girls out there so what was he supposed to do, just not look? You don’t look with your lips do you? That’s what I asked him and he got this tone on him, ugh I can still hear it, telling me I was getting too emotional about this. I was getting too emotional. About this. So I tossed him out and that was that. He tried to text me to hook up three different times after that, the fucker.”

“Oh my, that’s terrible, just awful! Let me assure you my dear, you won’t have to worry about that young man again.”

Lindsay smiled. “That’d be nice wouldn’t it?”

The angel nodded in agreement, suddenly very interested in the contents of his teacup.

“So um, what are you in Soho for this afternoon?”

“There’s a shop a couple of streets over,” she began and Aziraphale nodded and sipped his tea, using magic so minor it was barely a miracle to keep both cups at the perfect temperature until the last drop. 

Once she’d finished and thanked him a half-dozen times, the girl was back out the door and Aziraphale returned to his kitchen to wash the mugs from tea. Miracleing them clean was an option, but there were times that things ought to be done the human way, and the act of cleaning them gave him time to think about the poor girl’s problem. He was just sitting the mugs on a towel to drip dry when the bell from the front door tinkled again. 

Huffing a sigh, the angel bustled back into his shop and found not another customer but one Anthony J. Crowley leaning on the counter in a way so lazy it was almost suggestive. 

“Crowley! Just the demon I was looking for.”

Crowley looked at him over the frames of his sunglasses.

“Oh?” 

He could be like that, Crowley. One word was all he needed to ask a question and pose what would have been an irresistible temptation to anyone who wasn’t an angel. It was still nearly an irresistible temptation, but Aziraphale had years of practice not falling victim to the demon’s sultry tone and mesmerizing golden eyes.

“Well yes. There was a lovely young lady in here a few minutes ago and she’s having the most awful problem with her ex-boyfriend. And I thought, I ought to do something, he sounds like a right _bastard_ , but you know. I don’t have much talent for improvising.”

“Did you just call someone a bastard?”

“Well he earned it! You should hear how he treated the poor girl.”

“Why don’t you tell me all about it over an ice cream, and then I can think of something appropriate.”

Aziraphale gave his newest acquisition a longing look and then nodded.

“Yes, a ninety-nine would be just the thing this afternoon.”

“I’m more for an ice lolly, myself.”

 _Because it has more opportunity for nearly-pornographic ways of consumption,_ Aziraphale thought but did not say. And he was right of course.

He hung the ‘back in 30’ sign on the door, though it could be 30 minutes or 30 days before he decided to open again. It all depended on the ice cream, really. On the ice cream and on Crowley’s idea of the appropriate punishment for the young man who had so wronged dear Lindsay. Crowley had a terrifyingly wicked imagination.


	2. Marina G.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Marina G.  
> London, United Kingdom  
> 0 friends  
> 33 reviews  
> 48 photos
> 
> Pretty sure this guy wants a library, not a bookshop."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reviews are part of a charming Photoshop Manipulation (https://itsclydebitches.tumblr.com/post/186055292445/hey-all-remember-when-i-said-id-never-do-another) done by @itsclydebitches on Tumblr (also here). 
> 
> The reviews are her (amazing) works, I'm just telling the story behind each one.

Marina G.  
London, United Kingdom  
0 friends  
33 reviews  
48 photos

Pretty sure this guy wants a library, not a bookshop. I mean, he’s nice and all when you first come in, but trying to actually buy a book? Good fucking luck. He’s too busy to see you right now (for the record he’s super bad at pretending to be busy). Or claims that this book has already been put on reserve (then why wasn’t it in the reserve pile...?). Or the price suddenly jumped an obscene amount. Or he just straight up hems and haws until you get fed up and leave. I watched him pull a novel straight out of a woman’s hands once when she claimed that price was no object and she wouldn’t be leaving the store until she’d purchased it. You’d think she was trying to kidnap one of the guy’s kids!  
So yeah. Feel like popping in to browse, maybe take pictures for your research, all while making quiet conversation with someone who quite frankly knows his stuff? This is the place for you. Want to actually buy something? Go elsewhere. Pretty sure Fell doesn’t even own a cash register. At least I’ve never seen one.  
He wants a library and I’d honestly tell him as much if he didn’t scare me just a little bit...  
\-------

It was a Wednesday a bit before tea and it looked like rain. London looked like rain about 300 of the 375 days a year so this wasn’t unusual, and it had already drizzled a little after breakfast so the weather had worked itself up for something a little heavier in perhaps an hour. The bookshop had an unusual number of people in it and though Crowley had tried to convince him to close so they could go somewhere for tea, Aziraphale had suggested that he pick them up something nice while he talked a little more about the first edition Thomas Hardy he had recently acquired with a professor of English Literature who had been loitering about the shop admiring everything for at least two hours. Crowley had sighed heavily and flounced out (a very menacing flounce, mind) to fetch something. He’d only been gone ten minutes when one of the young women who had been browsing idly plucked a book off the shelf and looked around the shop before heading towards the desk at the front of the store.   
The angel had already thwarted two sales today just by being waiting out customers, making hesitant corrections, or rambling on about the weather or how it seemed that there were more pigeons in the city of late. Humans had significantly less patience than he.  
Aziraphale excused himself from his conversation with the professor and picked up a pile of books, moving them to one side of the desk and retrieving a stack of papers. The young woman was definitely approaching the desk. The angel shuffled the papers with a great degree of seriousness and began flipping through them as thought looking for something specific. When the potential customer was only a few meters away, Aziraphale plucked a paper from the pile and bustled off through the shelves, pretending to be looking for something.   
Tragically, the young woman waited by the counter.  
Aziraphale studied the paper he’d selected--a receipt of purchase from a first edition Oscar Wilde. Oscar had been a lovely fellow, charming and witty and unapologetically delighted with the male form. Aziraphale didn’t blame him--humans were endlessly fascinating--and they’d spent some time in various salons discussing art and eating the most marvelous hors d'oeuvres. He’d also been an excellent dancer, but nobody seemed interested in doing the gavotte with Aziraphale and so the angel had always watched appreciatively from the sidelines, toes tapping along with the music.   
The young woman at the desk leaned over the counter and peered around.  
Bother.  
The angel bustled around the bookshop, looking from his piece of paper to various books for at least fifteen minutes before he went into the back and rustled some more papers for another minute or two. The young woman was still at the counter. Aziraphale retrieved a feather duster and turned his attention to the displays near the windows, dusting the already perfectly-clean books and little sculptures and trinkets. When the young woman at the desk cleared her throat a few times, Aziraphale ignored her.  
Unfortunately, the professor came back, this time holding another Thomas Hardy--second edition, not first, but still quite valuable.  
“Mr. Fell, I believe I’ve found what I’m looking for.”  
“Oh lovely. I’m sure your lecture will be splendid.”  
“I noticed that there’s no price tag anywhere on the book.”  
“No,” Aziraphale agreed, returning his attention to the nonexistent dust on the books. When the professor continued to hover, he made his way back towards the desk, the young woman was still standing there, now having the nerve to look annoyed.  
“Mr. Fell, I’ve been waiting,” she said pointedly and Aziraphale held up the duster.  
“Been quite busy, my dear girl. Is there something you need assistance with?”  
“I’d like this one please.” She placed three twenty pound notes on the desk and nudged them towards the angel. Blast.  
“Oh where did you find that?” Aziraphale asked, reaching out to take the book on the counter. “This was placed on reserve by another customer, I’m afraid.”  
“Well it wasn’t in the reserve pile,” the woman replied, indicating the area of the desk clearly marked ‘Reserved--Not Available for Purchase’.   
“No, I hadn’t gotten to moving it over yet.”  
“Well if it isn’t in the reserve pile, then it’s still available.”  
“No,” Aziraphale said agreeably. “Can’t sell it to you, unfortunately.”  
The woman pointedly pushed her money a little further over the top of the desk.  
“It’s not in the reserve pile and I’d like to buy it please.”  
The angel clutched the book to his chest and looked frantically from the money to the woman to the door, where perhaps some kind of important distraction might emerge.  
“I’m afraid that won’t be nearly enough,” Aziraphale said quickly, tugging on the hem of his jumper.  
“The price says--”  
“It’s horribly inaccurate, I’m afraid. Mislabeled. No, it’s a hundred and twenty pounds.”  
“That’s double the amount it said!”  
“Must have mislabeled it. Entirely my mistake. Apologies for the inconvenience.”  
The woman took her money back and put it into her purse before walking to one of the plush chairs that Crowley liked so much and sat, texting furiously on her phone.  
The professor reappeared, still holding the book from before.  
“Price is no object, Mr. Fell. I really feel that this is necessary for my work and I won’t leave the shop without it.”  
Faster than any human could move, Aziraphale snatched the book from her hands, babbling about how he couldn’t possibly sell this, the personal value alone making it just too difficult to part with not to mention that he was certain that another client had requested this exact volume perhaps last month and he really ought to check his records before selling it and he was sure there was another volume that would suit her needs better. While saying this, he stroked the spine of the Hardy tenderly, frowning quite firmly at the professor all the while.   
“Unbelievable,” the professor fumed. “You can’t just refuse to sell me this, it’s a bookshop!”  
“Oh dear,” Aziraphale said suddenly, pointing out the window. “Is that your car that the police are putting a boot on?”  
The woman, who had most certainly walked to the bookshop after taking the bus to SoHo, saw that it was indeed her car and she scrambled out of the shop. The younger woman on the plush chair was still furiously texting and Aziraphale placed the books that he’d rescued onto his desk, hesitant to re-shelve them just yet and encourage someone else to try and take them home.   
At that moment, Crowley sauntered in with a white pastry box tied with brown twine in one hand and a jar of honey in the other.  
“Angel, I’ve found you something for tea.”  
The young woman looked from Crowley to Aziraphale and then at the shelves of books before she stood up and marched out.  
“In a bit of a mood then?” Crowley asked after she was gone.  
“I had four attempted purchases today, Crowley. Four.”  
“Might as well close up early to prevent any more of that.”  
Aziraphale nodded thoughtfully.  
“I’m at least closing for tea. It would be rude not to.”  
“Very,” Crowley agreed. “I remembered how you liked the diples the last time we were in Greece, and I brought extra of that honey topping you like.”  
Aziraphale wriggled excitedly and practically skipped to the door, which he locked, flipping the sign around from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’.   
“I’ll put the kettle on.”


	3. Aaron S.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the Yelp reviews created by ItsClydeBitches
> 
> (Text-only version of the Yelp reviews are also available on Chapter 6 of "Sparse Clutter" by ItsClydeBitches

Aaron S.  
New York, NY  
68 friends  
212 reviews  
337 photos

I stayed here for three days once. Found a bathroom off the romance section and a chair hidden away in the back. Way comfier than my mattress at home. Mostly played iPhone games and kept real quiet at night. Experiment ended when I popped out for breakfast and didn’t make it back before a random 10:00am closing. Don’t think the owner ever realized what was up.  
\----------

All bookshops are miraculous in their own way. It is the nature of a place filled with stories to be so, but AZ Fell and Co Antiquarian and Unusual Books was more magical, partially because it was owned, operated, and loved by Aziraphale. In the early days of the shop it had been smaller, just old and valuable volumes with a small section up front with more modern titles. As time passed, however, the bookshop grew in the way that loved things do and by the time the apocal-oops happened, it was a sprawling literary kingdom with genrefied sections and comfortable furniture and since Crowley’s arrival and increased visitations, a number of plants, from succulents and lucky bamboo to orchids and a bonsai tree that had been Crowley’s pet project for a good portion of the early 1900s. It liked living in the bookshop much better; it was much less intimidated by the angel as he had yet to threaten it with dismemberment even once.  
The first editions and rare volumes and misprints were still there, of course, though there was more room for other things now. There was a cooking section that had sprouted up in the 1970s and a romance section that had been slowly expanding since the shop opened. Nonfiction existed, though it was abysmally small. Most biographies were wildly inaccurate and many of the things humans considered to be fact were mostly assumptions on their part, usually incorrect ones. He did own a number of copies of books on the Jurassic Era because it cheered him up enormously when he was feeling particularly low. The Almighty had questionable tastes in musicals, but she did have an exceptional sense of humor.   
The shop opened and closed as Aziraphale wished--it was his own place after all. It was usually open mornings though sometimes if he went to breakfast or found a particularly good book or felt like watching the ducks at St. James’ Park, it didn’t open until afternoon. It was closed frequently for tea because who could enjoy their tea with people coming in and out? Angels didn’t need sleep, (nor did demons, but Crowley particularly enjoyed it) so there were times when he kept the bookshop open all night, just quietly existing with a nice cup of tea or glass of wine while a demon dozed on the couch. Bookshops were like that sometimes.  
“When did these get here?”  
Aziraphale was sitting on one of the chairs while Crowley examined a shelf from one of the newer sections to spawn--LGBTQIA+ materials. He peered over the lenses of his sunglasses, reading the titles under his breath.  
“It’s always been here, well not here specifically, but I’ve always had the books. But you know there are so many people, especially young people, who seem to be looking for them and I think they’ve been popping up out of necessity.”  
“Necessity,” Crowley said dryly.  
“Yes. People need books, Crowley. That’s why they come.”  
Crowley snorted.  
“Did you know that there’s some bloke camped in the romance section?”  
“Yes,” Aziraphale said serenely, “He hasn’t tried to buy anything and he’s been here for nearly a full day. I haven’t got anywhere to be and he’s quiet, so I’ve left him alone.”  
Over the tops of his sunglasses, Crowley gave Aziraphale a look.  
“What?”  
Crowley just shook his head, the barest hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. He pushed his sunglasses back up his nose.   
“What?” Aziraphale repeated and Crowley flopped sideways onto one of the armchairs in a way that couldn’t possibly be comfortable and rested his head against the plush back.   
After a moment, Aziraphale accepted that Crowley wasn’t actually going to answer him and he plucked a book from the table beside his chair. It was poetry--Walt Whitman, and Aziraphale opened it to the first poem and settled his entirely unnecessary glasses onto his nose.  
“If it’s poetry, do read it aloud. Helps me to doze off.”  
Aziraphale huffed in a way that indicated disapproval, but cleared his throat and began to read aloud.  
“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d,   
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,   
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. 

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,   
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,   
And thought of him I love.”  
He watched Crowley’s already improbably position loosen and the demon’s head began to nod gently before his head rested against the side of the chair  
The angel read a bit more of Walt Whitman’s ‘When Lilacs Last in the Doorway Bloom’d’ and the demon slumbered on, but he kept reading aloud, casting affectionate glances upon his sleeping companion. Once the first poem was finished, he read the next. Then another. And another. Outside it was startlingly nice, with barely a cloud in the sky and the sun cheerily peering down at everything. It was the kind of day that people went to parks and gardens and had picnics, the sort of day that no one came into dusty old bookshops to bother the owner with attempted purchases. Aziraphale read the rest of the book and then stood, setting it to one side. Crowley was truly asleep, limbs sprawled loosely over the furniture in a way that reminded Aziraphale (aptly) of a snake dozing on a sunny rock.  
Leaving his companion to slumber, Aziraphale went to the little room in the back of his bookshop and took the time to begin balancing his expenses in the accounting book that Crowley frequently reminded him could be easily replaced with a spreadsheet.   
He was technically in the red, but that was nearly always the case, and it hardly mattered. He didn’t need the bookshop to make money and he certainly didn’t need an income. He had thousands of years of wealth in its various forms and even if he didn’t, he didn’t require it. Money was something to be used for compensation--he loved dining at the Ritz and going to the ballet, but it wasn’t right to have the staff work for nothing and besides, he so loved tipping well. He also had a tendency to keep trinkets and if he ever ran low on money, which had yet to happen, he had lots of odds and ends from the past six thousand years sitting around, and humans adored very old things.   
Aziraphale put on a record--Mozart--and licked the tip of his pen. It wasn’t necessary any more to to get ink flowing, but it was a habit he’d been in for at least two hundred years and he wasn’t about to start changing out things that worked perfectly well just because they were a little out of date. With the stack of receipts he’d left for himself in a little wooden tray with ‘In’ burned into the wood in a blocky font. He copied down the prices he’d paid one by one, very occasionally writing in the other column when he’d sold something he didn’t particularly care for or had a better version of or, his favorite, a book he sold to a person who truly needed it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to sell books...well actually it was. He didn’t want to sell books to people who wouldn’t appreciate them as much as he did. A book lover that he approved of was someone that came along every half decade or so, at least until recently, when more and more young people had clustered in his queer books section, and came to the counter clutching the stories to their chests like the pages and ink were a life jacket to keep them afloat. Many of them were content just to sit in the shop and read, but the occasional brave youth who counted out pound notes and pence in their hands before coming to the counter, the ones whose hands shook a little as they showed the angel their desired purchase, those were humans that would love the books for what they were--a lantern in the dark.   
When the record finished, he put on another and continued with his forms. He barely noticed when Crowley hovered by the door, though he did look up when the demon walked past his desk and settled on the squashy sofa behind him.   
“All right, dear?”  
“Chair was giving me a crick in the neck.”  
Aziraphale nodded and returned his attention to the accounting book as Crowley sprawled onto the couch, limps draped here and there. After the second record was over, Aziraphale stood to stretch and found that Crowley had moved from his sprawl to being curled up, knees pulled in, arms tucked close to his sides, his sunglasses half off his face. Aziraphale wanted to miracle up a blanket, but he had such a nice old quilt on his bed upstairs that he never used and instead he climbed the stairs to his flat and fetched it instead. Miracled things were real, but they didn’t have the same weight and warmth of something that had been made by human hands. He tucked the quilt, which was a variety of green and blue tartan squares, around his friend and ever-so-gently pulled the sunglasses from his face.   
In an instant, Crowley was kneeling on the couch, mouth open and teeth bared.  
“Only me,” Aziraphale said lightly. “I didn’t want you to bend them while you napped.”  
He didn’t mention that Crowley wasn’t very intimidating with a tartan quilt draped over his shoulders, even with his fangs beared, it would only irritate the demon, who once he recognized Aziraphale, settled back onto the sofa.  
“You don’t just take things from sleeping people!”  
“I was hardly taking, my dear boy. I was setting them on the table so you didn’t bend the frames. I know how you like this pair.”  
Crowley grumbled a few things and settled back into the squashy cushions, quilt still wrapped around him. Aziraphale heard a few key words including ‘angel’ and ‘sleeping’ and ‘bitten’ and ‘bloody moron’, but Crowley was already relaxing back down and the angel tolerantly ignored it. Crowley could be so grumpy when he was awoken, but he looked like he was settling in for a good twenty-four hour nap, if not a longer one, and wasn’t going to waste his energy complaining when he could be asleep.   
Once the books were balanced it was getting late and though Aziraphale closed the shop after mentally checking that there was indeed still a man sitting in his romance section. Well, he just wouldn’t go upstairs then. He didn’t think the man had any ill intentions, but wasn’t about to abandon him in the shop either. So instead he picked up a copy of the collected poems of William Shakespeare--he was in a particular mood for poetry-- and settled on the couch where Crowley wasn’t. He only moved a few times during the night, and when it was morning again, the serpent slept on and Aziraphale opened the shop again. He thought to offer the man in the romance section a cup of tea, but if he’d been here all night and hadn’t spoken up, he was probably enjoying his privacy. The angel understood that and just brewed a cup for himself. He spent the day puttering about dusting and straightening books, watering plants, and of course, reading. The man in the romance section left once, but returned with fish and chips which he ate outside on the front step before wiping his hands clean and coming back in.   
Crowley slept another full day and when Aziraphale closed the man was still in the romance section, his phone plugged into a wall outlet. He seemed very intent on his mobile phone and Aziraphale once again left him alone, but did remain in his office all night. Crowley had shifted on the couch si his feet were pressed against the arm and his head was on the center cushion. He was still wrapped in the quilt and when Aziraphale settled down with a small stack of Ray Bradbury’s short story collections, Crowley shifted so the top of his head was resting against the angel’s outer thigh. The demon shifted again in a way that would have been described as snuggling deeper into the couch’ if any other being had done it. Aziraphale smiled fondly at him and began to read.  
Over the course of the night, Crowley shifted several times and attempted to stretch out further, eventually resting his head in Aziraphale’s lap, where he once again settled into heavy slumber. As he read, Aziraphale had a strong, almost overpowering urge to stroke the demon’s hair. It was soft and red and when Crowley was asleep like this he looked so soft, so vulnerable, like a soothing stroke would be comforting. However, recalling how Crowley had reacted to his sunglasses being removed, he decided against it and settled for resting his arm beside Crowley’s face so he could feel each soft breath against the skin of his wrist. When Crowley curled up tighter into himself sometime around eleven the next morning, Aziraphale was almost disappointed. He missed the contact immediately, and furthermore, he couldn’t have been expected to open the shop if he was serving as a pillow. As he was doing so no longer, he flipped the sign on the door to ‘Open’ and fixed himself a boiled egg and some toast. He wasn’t hungry really--he didn’t get hungry--but there was something nice about the ritual of breakfast.   
He went through another entire day with the man in romance bothering no one, Crowley dead asleep on the couch in the back, and the shop pleasantly slow. He read another book and had some tea and because he was feeling peckish, a few of the biscuits from the tin. He closed as usual and would have settled on the couch had Crowley not been sprawled so widely that he left no space for anyone else. Instead, he lifted Crowley’s head gently, sat, and replaced the demon’s head in his lap, where Crowley certainly did not rub his cheek on Aziraphale’s trouser leg like a cat marking something with its scent. Thinking the demon was only readjusting himself again, Aziraphale continued on with his reading through the night, trying not to flinch when Crowley draped an arm over his lap and nuzzled his thigh, mumbling something in his sleep before he relaxed into the new pose.   
He opened the shop at eight and when a shipment came in, he carried the box to the front counter and opened it excitedly, lifting out each new book like it was his own firstborn child. (He didn’t have any children and was not interested in attempting to create one.) Once the volumes were all laid out on the counter for him to admire and examine, a hand came down on his shoulder.  
“Heavens!”   
A hissing chuckle told him all he needed to know, and Aziraphale turned around.  
“Don’t scare me like that!”  
“It’sss fun,” Crowley retorted, still a little groggy.  
“How was your nap?”  
“Good. Do you fancy getting breakfast? I could use an espresso.”  
“There’s a lovely little bakery I think you’d like, Italian. I’m sure they have espresso as well.”  
Crowley smiled, slow and just a little wicked.  
“If they don’t, they will.”  
Aziraphale made a ‘humph’ sort of noise as he was meant to, though he didn’t put much effort into it.   
“All right then. Be out in a tick.”  
The man in the romance section had gone out around nine-thirty, presumably to find food, and Aziraphale felt no remorse at all about locking up and leaving the shop closed for the rest of the day. Breakfast wouldn’t take that long, of course, but he usually liked a nice walk after breakfast and there was an art exhibit that he’d been meaning to see, and a dozen other things to do in London with his closest companion. He pocketed his keys and slid into the passenger seat of the Bentley.  
“Where to?”  
“At the end of the road, take a left.”  
Crowley put his foot on the gas pedal a little harder than was strictly necessary and Aziraphale clutched the door handle with all the appropriate levels of anxiety, but he smiled while he did it. One had to keep up appearances, after all.


	4. Hana S.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the review of 'Hana S.' in Chapter 6 of "Sparse Clutter" by ItsClydeBitches

Hana S.  
London, United Kingdom  
112 friends  
115 reviews  
208 photos

I really love this place. I’ve been coming here since I moved to London, about twelve years ago, and it’s one of the most soothing bookstores I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting. Yeah, you hear talk of weird things going on at Fell’s, but really? We could all do with a bit more quirky in our lives. And Fell provides that in spades: Annual plants that never seem to wither, let alone die. The smell of incense mixing with cocoa. Strange books tucked horizontally into the shelves, feeling like they have a touch of magic to them. Nonsensical conversations taking place in dark corners (I’m talking candid chats about the apocalypse and whether angels could actually bless all the rains down in Africa. I swear Fell and his boyfriend are the religion Mythbusters or something.) I’m going to sound like a total nerd here for a moment, but it feels like some sort of liminal space. You know when you were a kid and you were just desperate to receive your Hogwarts letter? Or find your own wardrobe to Narnia? That’s what walking into Fell’s feels like. Like you’ve finally found that portal and can stay as long as you like, provided you don’t try to take anything back with you into the ‘real’ world. Hell, maybe that’s why he won’t let anyone buy his books.  
\------------

It rarely snowed in London but that didn’t stop it from being cold and rainy and miserable once December rolled around. There was barely a year since the apocal-oops was mover and done with and yet here were an angel and a demon sitting in the bookshop sipping cocoa as the occasional customer opened the door to let in a draft of cold, damp air. Crowley scowled at the door and pulled a little silver flask from his pocket, adding a generous dollop to his cocoa.  
“Is that alcohol?”  
“Whiskey.”  
“I don’t see why you would ruin both a perfectly good cup of cocoa and a perfectly good drink of whiskey by mixing them together.”  
Crowley shrugged languidly.  
“S’good.”  
He held the mug out to his companion.  
“Try it.”  
Making faces all the while, Aziraphale first cupped the mug in his hands and inhaled the chocolate-and-whiskey scent, then took a tentative sip. His eyebrows went up and he took another sip.  
“Hey!” Crowley snatched back his mug. “If you want some, make your own.”  
“It’s not bad, but I think I have a bottle of something upstairs which might go better. Don’t let anyone buy anything while I’m gone, I’ll be back in a moment.”  
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”  
Aziraphale returned with a dusty bottle sealed with red wax.  
“Cherry liqueur from Portugal. I think it will go nicely.”  
He poured carefully into his mug and stirred before taking a sip.  
“Oh that’s lovely.”  
“Let me have a taste, I let you sample mine.”  
“All right then, no need to be so bossy.”  
Crowley took a sip, nodded, then handed it back.  
“You’re going to make me one once I finish this,” he said, indicating his whiskey-spiked cocoa.  
“Whatever you like dear.”  
It was quiet for awhile, except for the record that Aziraphale had on, something with a lot of wooden flutes and the occasional drum. There were people in the shop, but they were browsing or taking a break from the misery outside. No one seemed interested in buying anything and a young woman, one of Aziraphale’s regulars, was curled up near the fireplace with a leather bound volume, entirely absorbed in it. Crowley took another sip of whiskey-laced coca and made a noise in the back of his throat somewhere between a hum and a purr to express his satisfaction with the armchair, the cocoa, the company.  
“Comfortable?” Aziraphale asked lightly and Crowley snorted in what was probably supposed to be contempt but definitely was nothing of the sort.  
“I’ve been thinking,” the demon mused. “This December wasn’t meant to happen.”  
“What?”  
“Well with the End of Times coming and well, going....pretty much meant that last December was. You know. The last.”  
“I suppose you’re right,” Aziraphale said thoughtfully, “Though that is the Plan. I suppose She must know what she’s doing.”  
Crowley scoffed and Aziraphale was reminded not for the first time that demons were just fallen angels.  
“Not that I meant--”  
Crowley tossed back his whiskey-and-cocoa and handed Aziraphale the empty mug.  
“Make this one like yours.”  
Aziraphale took the escape that he was offered and Crowley settled deeper into the armchair. He glanced around and blinked, letting his eyes go fully serpentine, layering the infrared over what he could already see. His vision was better than the average snake’s though, and he scanned the bookshop, checking the premises. There was still a person in the chair by the fire, their heat signatures bleeding together, and someone stood near the front door, inspecting a stack of modern suspense novels that Aziraphale might actually sell. That person’s hands and feet were cooler--poor circulation he suspected. He could see the radiator’s red glow and as he came back to the area in front of him, the dull orange of Aziraphale’s cocoa, which stayed at the right temperature because that was what Aziraphale expected and the cocoa didn’t want to disappoint him. Crowley sympathized, but didn’t say so. Aziraphale’s heat signature was dimmed by the obstacles--shelves, a wall, et cetera,--but Crowley could still see his faint outline if he really focused. The angel was handling something hot--the kettle probably--and pouring more heat into a container on the counter. Definitely making cocoa then. He blinked the infrared vision away and pulled out his phone, idly scrolling through Twitter. He had several accounts exclusively for sowing dissent and there was no better time to do so than high-stress pre-holiday seasons. As Aziraphale re-entered the room, the record finished and the needle lifted neatly away and settled back into its place.  
“Is it over already?”  
He set down the cocoa next to Crowley and removed the record, replacing it in its sleeve before he inspected the others in the cupboard.  
“No more of your music, angel. It’s giving me indigestion.”  
“Just because it’s not bebop,” Aziraphale muttered, and Crowley snapped his fingers. A little portable radio that had previously been buried somewhere in one of Aziraphale’s storage rooms appeared on a table nearby and began to play the tail end of a commercial for soap.  
“Records don’t have commercials,” Aziraphale grouched as he sat back down, and Crowley flashed a self-satisfied grin.  
“Awful, aren’t they? My idea, having them on at mostly the same time on all the channels. Even if you change the station, there’s still more of them. Nearly got a certificate for that, but some demon downstairs came up with...oh what was it? Some kind of disease, probably. Sexually transmitted, most likely. They like that down there, two evils in one--lust and pain.”  
The next commercial was just finishing up and the sound of horns piped through the radio speakers.  
“Satan, no,” Crowley groaned as a choir began to sing ‘Angels We Have Heard on High’ in clear, piping voices. He snapped his fingers again and changed the station. More Christmas music. He snapped a few more times before the radio began playing a Queen song, followed by another.  
“And as we round out the hour, we’ll continue our ‘Best of Queen’ playlist. But first, a quick message from our sponsors.”  
A commercial began to play and Crowley sighed moodily before pouring another dollop of the liqueur into his cocoa and taking a sip. They continued drinking cocoa mixed with various liquors. Not enough to get either of them drunk, of course, but enough to add a pleasant buzz to the edges of things. The radio finished its Queen marathon and began crooning a familiar tune.  
I hear the drums echoing tonight  
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation  
She's coming in, 12:30 flight  
Her moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation  
Crowley chuckled as the refrain of the song began.  
“D’you reckon you could?”  
Aziraphale looked up.  
“Hm?”  
“D’you reckon you could bless all of the rains in Africa?”  
“Theoretically or in practice?”  
“Oh...either.”  
Aziraphale thought about it.  
“Theoretically, I’m sure it could be done, but it would be a dreadful hassle and waste a lot of perfectly good miracles.”  
“And in practice?”  
Certainly not!”  
Crowley affected the same tone and expression that he once had used to ask the Principality of the Eastern Gate if he’d lost his flaming sword.  
“Not powerful enough then?”  
“Well yes, but even if that wasn’t an issue, it couldn’t be done practically. There are rules about making water holy!”  
“Rules,” Crowley parroted, trying to replicate Aziraphale’s tone and failing, much to the amusement of himself and absolutely no one else.  
“Yes, Crowley. Rules. Water can only be blessed within an area you can see, for one thing. So if I can’t see all the rains in Africa simultaneously, I wouldn’t be able to bless them.”  
“Haven’t you got like...a hundred eyes or something? Wheels of fire and all that?”  
“You’re thinking of Thrones. Principalities look very much like humans. As their guides, I think the Almighty saw fit to make us look as unthreatening as possible and humans find familiarity unthreatening.”  
“Boring, more like.”  
“Even if I could see all the rains at once and even if I had the power to bless them all at once, I couldn’t. To intentionally create holy water to be contaminated by the profane is to commit sacrilege. I suppose I could still bless the rains, but it wouldn’t make the rains all holy water.”  
Crowley nodded.  
“Suppose that makes sense in its way. If your lot could just make it rain Holy Water whenever they felt like it, it’d be pretty easy for my lot to get completely wiped out. Not much point in a War to end all Wars if you can just have a light shower and clear out all of demonkind.”  
“Suppose so. I hadn’t really given it much thought.”  
This was a band-faced lie. Aziraphale worried about Crowley accidentally encountering holy water on more occasions than he cared to admit. Giving his companion the thermos of holy water may have been the hardest thing he had done since deciding to give the Almighty Herself a blathering non-answer when She asked about his flaming sword and where it had gotten to. He didn’t sleep except in very extreme circumstances--when he’d burned through all his miracles and had injuries that needed healing, for example. It had happened a handful of times in the past 6,000 years, specifically during the World Wars and more recently, invasions into what humans referred to as ‘the Middle East’ but Aziraphale thought of as ‘Closer to Eden’. So much death and suffering seemed unnecessary, and he was an angel, for the Almighty’s sake! Serving and saving mankind was part of his job.  
When he slept last, after the body-swap and subsequent letting go of Heaven and Hell, he’d had a terrible nightmare of Crowley--the real Crowley, not Aziraphale wearing his form--being forcefully stripped down to his shirtsleeves and pushed slowly, inch by inch, into a tub of holy water. He’d screamed and Aziraphale had woken up with a gasp, the heartbeat he didn’t need pounding in his chest. He shivered at the memory.  
“You’re not still cold?”  
“What? No. Just a little shiver.”  
Crowley looked doubtful but didn’t say anything. The clock chimed and Aziraphale stood, setting his mug down gently.  
“Time to close. Back in a moment, dear.”  
The girl in the chair--Hana--was still there, still reading.  
“Hana, dear. I’m about to close the shop. Would you like me to set this aside for you so you can finish when you come back?”  
“Thank you Mr. Fell, that’d be lovely. It’s so cozy in here in the winter, I can’t help but curl up and read all afternoon.”  
“I know the feeling exactly.”  
They smiled at each other, the human and the angel, and Aziraphale escorted her politely to the door, telling her to be careful on her walk home. He added a bit of a miracle to make sure his instructions came true, but that was hardly worth mentioning. He closed the door to the shop and locked it, flipping the sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’ and turning off the lights in the front of the store. He extinguished the fire in the fireplace with a wave of his hand. This was not a miracle, the fire was entirely artificial and the switch he’d slid down with his palm turned the fire-display on the miniature heater off. Keeping an actual fire running in an antique bookshop was nothing short of idiocy and while Aziraphale had been accused of foolishness, he was not an idiot in any sense of the word.  
Once it was all closed, he settled back down into his chair. Crowley was playing a game on his phone and in the low light of the bookshop he was outlined in a yellowish glow that would have brought out his lovely yellow eyes if he wasn’t wearing those blasted sunglasses. He couldn’t say anything of the sort, of course. Crowley wasn’t one to accept a compliment, especially one about the feature he was most sensitive about. So instead of saying something kind that the demon would brush off or scorn or sarcasm, he picked up Crowley’s empty mug.  
“Shall we switch to tumblers then? More of the liquor, less of the cocoa?”  
Crowley smiled slowly, teeth showing, but in a way that Aziraphale didn’t really mind.  
“Angel,” he drawled. “I thought you’d never ask.”


	5. Robert T.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the reviews in this image: https://itsclydebitches.tumblr.com/post/186055292445/hey-all-remember-when-i-said-id-never-do-another

Robert T.  
Union City, CA  
4 friends  
26 reviews  
3 photos

There’s a snake?? In this shop?? A reALLY MASSIVE SNAKE????? What are y’all doing talkin’ about your meet cutes and shit someone call pest control!  
\------------

January was just as chilly and damp as December had been and if Aziraphale hadn’t been a being of love and celestial intent, he might have been jealous of the chair by the old radiator where Crowley liked to lay in snake form, basking in the heat. There was more than one heater of course, but that one seemed to be his favorite. And Aziraphale wasn’t jealous, he absolutely wasn’t. It would be ridiculous to be jealous of a chair and petty to move it, so he did his best to ignore it. The chair had no idea what it’d done wrong, but carried on valiantly in the face of angelic disappointment.  
The serpent form of Crowley was enormous, long and black and scaly with an edge of red to his scales. Aziraphale privately thought him a very handsome snake, but said nothing about it because Crowley would either get cross and deny it or drawl on about how he knew how handsome he was, but how it was nice for a demon to feel appreciated. The second choice was a ruse meant to annoy Aziraphale because he could taste the deception on the words, how Crowley was using them to cover his vulnerabilities. Instead he ordered a heated blanket from a catalogue and waited for it to be delivered. He would have miracled it there, but then a good number of workers wouldn’t be getting paid for their labor and at least two of them were preparing for the birth of a child and thus needed the money.   
He kept the bookshop warmer than he’d usually prefer, shedding his outer coat and working in a waistcoat and shirtsleeves so his scaled companion could lounge around the shop, not just be limited to the chair by the radiator. Not because he was jealous, mind. Because it was a kind thing to do and also because having a giant black snake draped over shelves here or there kept away some customers.  
It was nearly noon and Aziraphale tidied the shop as Crowley shifted from his human form to his elapine one, hissing something about a nap as he slithered up the side of a low bookcase and coiled himself into a comfortable position right under the heating vent in the ceiling. Aziraphale paused to give his scales a stroke.  
“Have a lovely nap, my dear.”  
Crowley hissed in a way that would have been very menacing had Aziraphale not known that it was entirely for show. He smiled adoringly at the snake and patted his head.  
“Yes, darling, very threatening. Do keep it up.”  
The snake hissed again, managing to sound disgruntled, and stilled, relaxing into a light doze.   
Aziraphale continued tidying up and settled himself in the chair nearest to Crowley’s shelf, opening a book he’d been meaning to get to since the early 1900s. The Count of Monte Cristo hadn’t been translated into English for a good number of years and then when it finally had, he’d been busy with other things. It was a riveting read, and he scarcely noticed when the bell on the shop’s door rang, announcing a customer.  
As it was, he looked up for a half second, pegged them as tourists browsing, and went back to his book. They came and went, as did a few others who paused to linger in the warm shop or peer around at the dusty shelves. No one attempted to buy anything. A good ways into the afternoons, perhaps four or four-thirty when it was already getting darker, he looked up to find Crowley slithering down the shelf to the floor. He was moving slowly and a little stiffly so Aziraphale set his book down to watch.  
“Are you quite all right?”  
“Yeah, fine,” replied a voice that Aziraphale didn’t recognize. As he turned to face the person in his shop, three things happened in quick succession. The first was that the customer spotted Crowley. The second was that he yelped, and the third was Crowley looking over and hissing crossly. The tourist took one, two, three steps back as Crowley sized him up, decided he wasn’t worth bothering over, and continued slithering across the floor towards the back of the shop, likely to a very specific chair by the radiator.   
“Why the fuck is there a snake in here?”  
“A snake?” Aziraphale asked.   
“The giant black monster right there!”  
Aziraphale looked to where the tourist was pointing, but the only visible part of Crowley left was the tip of his tail before he rounded a corner and disappeared from view.   
“Oh him,” the angel replied lightly. “He likes it near the heating vents.”  
“He likes it near the heating vents!?!” the tourist shrieked in what was rapidly becoming hysteria.   
“Reptiles are cold-blooded you know. When it’s cold like this outside, they like to stay near heat sources.”  
“They like to stay near heat sources???”  
Aziraphale wasn’t sure if the man was hard of hearing, enjoyed the echo effect of repeating what other people had said, or just confused by the information being presented.  
“Yes. They get quite sluggish when they’re cold.”  
The bell on the door rang and a woman carrying a parcel came in, hat pulled over her ears.  
“Oh good, I’ve been waiting on that. Terrible weather out, isn’t it?”  
“Rubbish,” the parcel woman agreed. “But I’ve got some lovely woolen socks under the boots and they’re keeping my toes warm enough.”  
“Are you on a tight schedule?” Aziraphale asked. “Surely you’ve earned a break for a hot cuppa before you go back out into that mess.”  
The tourist was still standing slightly to Aziraphale’s left, gaping at both the angel and the parcel carrier. They both ignored him.  
“I really would, Mr. Fell but I’ve only got a few more deliveries and then I can get home. The wife’s making shepherd’s pie and I don’t want to be late for supper.”  
“Of course. Do hold on a moment, though?”  
“Of course.”  
Aziraphale carried the box to the counter and hurried back to his little kitchenette, miracling the kettle hot before he made a quick cup of tea in one of those disposable paper cups with the cardboard cozies to keep your hands from burning. He knew how the parcel woman took her tea and came back out carrying the cup as he affixed a lid to it.   
“Here you are, Janet.”  
“You’re an angel, Mr. Fell.”  
He forced a smile at her.  
“Yes, quite.”  
She walked out and the tourist cleared his throat.  
“Yes?”  
“The snake!?!”   
“What about him?”  
The man said a few very choice words and stomped out.  
“Well then,” Aziraphale replied and checking his watch, decided they’d had quite enough customers today. He closed up and took the box with the heated blanket to the back room where he kept his desk, the squashy couch, and a number of files, books, and other assorted things. There wasn’t an outlet where he wanted it so he gave the wall a rather disappointed look until it created one in precisely the right spot.   
“Oh thank you,” he sighed and opened the box. The instructions were simple enough and had plenty of warning labels about not using the blanket near water or leaving it plugged in unattended or turning the temperature too high before bed. After reading them all thoroughly, he plugged it in and settled on the couch, blanket over him, and opened the Count of Monte Cristo again.  
It didn’t take long for Crowley to come into the back to find out where Aziraphale had gotten to. He was still a snake, and when he spotted the angel, he hissed irritably.  
“Yes, I turned the heat down to where it belongs. I know you prefer it warmer, but it isn’t good for the books.”  
Crowley hissed again, this time showing his fangs a little.  
“You could have stayed by the radiator, I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”  
The snake crawled across the floor and up onto the couch, settling himself over the heated blanket spread over Aziraphale’s lap and legs.  
“Oh so now I’m the radiator?” Aziraphale asked, supposedly exasperated.  
Crowley didn’t say anything and instead coiled around Aziraphale, resting his head in the angel’s lap. He gave Aziraphale a little squeeze in protest and the angel sighed, pulling the blanket higher so more of it was touching Crowley.   
“If that’s all, I was trying to read.”  
Crowley didn’t respond, but he could feel the great muscles relaxing around him. When he was certain that Crowley wasn’t looking, Aziraphale allowed himself a triumphant little smile. Serpents weren’t the only ones who could be wily.


	6. Malini D

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the brilliant Yelp Reviews of ItsClydeBitches (linked here) URL: https://itsclydebitches.tumblr.com/post/186055292445/hey-all-remember-when-i-said-id-never-do-another

Malini D.  
London, United Kingdom  
0 friends  
48 reviews  
99 photos

I’m not gonna pretend I have anything to say about whether this is a good bookstore or not, but if you ever want knitting help you should definitely stop by. Mr. Fell knows an absurd amount about crafts for a guy who looks like my grandpa and he’s now replaced Youtube as my go-to for alleviating “Omg please fix this how the hell did I manage to reverse the pattern??” panic. For the record, I didn’t just wander up to a random bookseller one day and demand that he help me salvage the ruins of my first sweater. I’d taken a seat inside to wait out a storm, had my messy sleeve stuffed into my purse, and he’d offered the help. Bit of a bastard about things like gauge and color--not everyone wants to wear tartan, dude--but you get used to that. He means well. Said I should come back to show him the finished piece, which I did. Things just kind of spiraled from there. He’s an absolute treasure trove of knowledge once you get him talking and a muffin to boot. If he were twenty years younger and in any way straight I would have asked him out in a heartbeat. As it is I’m considering setting him up with Grandpa.  
\----------  
Thunder rolled, low and menacing and the rain came in at nearly a forty-five degree angle when the bell on the shop dinged, allowing entrance to a teenage girl in a blue-and-orange knit hat, already dripping wet, curled over a canvas bag to keep it dry. Aziraphale looked up over his little round spectacles and reached under the counter, miracling a towel into existence. He stood and carried the towel over. It was predictably tartan and a little faded as though it had been in use for years, but the girl accepted it with a smile.   
“Thanks. It just started coming down.”  
“It does tend to do that,” he said mildly. Coming from anyone else, it would have sounded superior or sarcastic, but from the angel it was just an observation. The girl nodded, using the towel to dry her hair before she handed it back to him.  
“Thank you, really. If you don’t mind, I’ll just wait it out in here.”  
“Absolutely, dear child. If you go sit by the little heater over there, you should be thoroughly dry in no time.”  
Taking the damp towel to the back room, where he miracled it away, Aziraphale put the kettle on. The girl chose a chair near the heater with the artificial flame display and pulled her bag open. Inside was a mass of dark green yarn and a number of double-pointed bamboo knitting needles with little rubber caps on the ends. She smoothed the project in her lap and as she counted stitches, a near-panicked look arose on her features.   
“Oh no.”  
“Oh, a knitting project! What are you making?”  
“It’s supposed to be a sleeve for my first sweater but it looks like I somehow reversed the pattern two rows ago! I’m going to have to unravel the whole thing and start over!”  
“Oh it’s not as bad as all that,” Aziraphale said, gently taking the sleeve from her and inspecting it.  
“Yes, it should be relatively simple to fix.”  
“You knit?”  
“I have an awful lot of free time,” he replied and began directing her in exactly where she needed to unravel and where she’d knitted a bit too tightly and the stitch she’d dropped there. In perhaps twenty minutes, the stitches were all back on the needles and he was pointing to a piece of the sleeve, explaining where she’d erred in the previous attempt.  
“Thank you! You’ve saved me twice today!”  
“Well if you want more input, that weight of yarn is a bit light for a sweater.”  
“I was trying for a lighter weight so I don’t overheat,” she replied.   
“A lighter weight sweater?”   
“Yes.”  
Aziraphale made a face that Crowley privately thought of his ‘celestial judgement’ face--his lips pursed slightly, his brows slightly raised, and his eyes conveying both disappointment and the faintest hint of superior disapproval. The girl raised her eyebrows in response, but said nothing.  
“It’s your sweater I suppose.”   
“Yes.”  
“I’ll leave you to it then.”  
He bustled off, but ended up doing his dusting and polishing and tidying all within sight of the girl on the chair, placidly knitting her sleeve. It was perhaps ten minutes later that he began wiping down the little table beside the girl’s chair with a little furniture polish and a rag.  
“And the whole sweater is going to be that color?”  
“That was my intention, yes.”  
Aziraphale nodded and rubbed a little more polish onto the tabletop.  
“It’s a little...drab, isn’t it? Just the green?”  
“I like green.”  
“It might look nicer, if you don’t mind me suggesting, with a bit of a pattern? Tartan perhaps? Such a lovely pattern, goes with everything.”  
“No, I think I’d like to keep on with the green.”  
“Oh.” He sounded a little disappointed and gave the table a final little buff with the cloth before replacing doily and the lamp which had sat upon it.   
The storm had slowed to a steady misting rain, the kind London was known for, and after another half-hour, it eased to an occasional drop here or there and a sky full of low, grey clouds. The girl began packing up her things, making sure all her needles were capped, wrapping the extra yarn attached to the project back into the ball, and folding the project to replace it into her purse.  
“Do come back and show me the finished product!”  
“I will, thanks!”  
Perhaps a month and a half later, a girl in a green sweater stuck her head into the shop and peered around, grinning when she spotted Aziraphale. She walked right up to the desk.  
“Hello Mr. Fell!”  
“What’s that? It’s not for sale.”  
He looked up and gave her a wide, warm smile.  
“Oh it’s you my dear girl. And is that it then?”  
“Yup! All finished. It came out really well, I think.”  
“Yes, a wonderful job to be sure! Have you picked up another project then?”  
“Since the first one came out so well, I decided to try a cable-knit.”  
“Oh, those are tricky the first time ‘round.”  
“They are, which is why I wanted you to take a look at this.”  
She pulled a knitted piece from her purse and unrolled it onto the desk.   
“I keep getting stuck here, on the switch. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.”  
Pushing his glasses down his nose, Aziraphale peered through them at the work, his fingers gentle as he lifted it to get a closer look.   
“If you’re going to be coming around, I ought to know your name.”  
“Malini. Malini Dasgupta.”  
“How nice to be formally introduced. I am Mr. Fell, as you already know. It looks like you knitted onto the cable needle instead of purling under.”  
“Did I?” Malini took back the piece and squinted at it. “You’re right! Thank you!”  
“Anytime, my dear girl. I myself am currently working on a cabled blanket and I’ve had to fix quite a few little errors like that.”  
“Tartan I presume?”  
“Why yes!” he beamed at her. “However did you guess?”  
Malini shrugged.  
“I’ve always been a good guesser, I suppose.”  
“Is the cabled sweater for you as well?”  
“For my Grandpa. He’s always cold.”  
“That does tend to happen as people age.”  
“Do you tend to get chilly as well?”  
She had the decency to look embarrassed almost immediately after, but Aziraphale merely chuckled.  
“No, I’ve never tended towards being chilly. I have a dear friend, however, who positively hates the cold. If he had his way, he’d be wrapped in a heated blanket all the time. It’s him that I’m making the blanket for. Poor dear can’t wait for summer.”  
“It’s March at least,” Malini said. “Not much longer for him to wait.”  
“Yes,” Aziraphale replied, sounding a little put-out. “He’ll be able to put the heated blankets away soon enough.”  
“I suppose you can always work on it for the next winter.”  
“That’s true. Or when we have a cold streak.”  
“Do you mind if I sit in here and knit a bit? Would that bother you?”  
“Oh not at all, my dear. Do find yourself a nice chair.”  
“Don’t mind me at all.”  
“Oh it’s no trouble. I’ve actually been thinking of taking a tea break and working on another square for the blanket.”  
“Will you bring it out? I’d love to see what you’ve got so far.”  
“I’d be delighted!”   
He did genuinely sound delighted and Malini smiled, leaning on the counter as Aziraphale disappeared into the back and emerged a minute or two later with a tartan blanket square half-done, the cable a perfect ridge of black up the center of the square.  
“Oh it’s lovely!”  
“Thank you. Would you like some tea as well?”  
“That’d be lovely.”  
When Crowley returned from wherever he’d been out--sowing trouble no doubt--he found his angel and a young woman both busily knitting in a corner of the bookshop. Rolling his eyes, Crowley slipped into the back room for a quick nap on the couch back there. Once Aziraphale got started on one of his projects there was no stopping him until he was good and ready. He would have preferred to curl up in his snake form around Aziraphale and the heated blanket, but as neither appeared to be available, he reclined on the couch and closed his eyes. Perhaps when he woke up, Aziraphale would be there too.


	7. Tiffany L.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the Yelp Reviews of AZ Fell and Co...each chapter based on a review. Original reviews here:
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/19364431/chapters/46364224

Tiffany L.  
London, United Kingdom  
132 friends  
312 reviews  
34 photos

I’m not really a book person myself but I followed my wife in with our seventh-month old and was kinda embarrassed when he started making a fuss. Normally I’m full Badass Mom mode while in public--I’ve got a kid to feed, change, sooth, and you all can damn well deal with it--but this place was so quiet Liam seemed extra loud in comparison. I was about to take him back out when a man appeared out of nowhere. The owner I guess, based on how some of these other reviews describe him. Older gentleman with clothes out of some period piece. Anyway, he scoops Liam into his arms like he was born for it and started bouncing. Our fussy, temperamental, drama queen Liam settled in an instant and my wife got to browse to her heart’s content. I don’t know how he did it, but that man is an absolute angel. Full stars for that moment alone.  
\----------

A sunny April afternoon was a perfect time to curl up with a good book, and Aziraphale had. The sofa in his back room was squashy and comfortable and had the added bonus of having a red-haired demon snoring gently, his feet draped over Aziraphale’s lap. He had heard the bell on the door a few times throughout the day, but anytime he felt someone tripping the wards he’d set on the counter at the front of his shop, he used a little bit of his divine intervention to steer them away. It wasn’t even a miracle, just the sort of celestial redirection that angels employed to keep humanity from noticing anything too out of the ordinary. The bell rang again and Aziraphale sighed and turned the page of his book. It was too nice of a day for people to keep coming into his shop, but humanity always seemed to insist upon being inconvenient.  
Moments after the bell rang, a child began to wail. Aziraphale looked up from his book as the wailing continued. He could hear a woman shushing the child gently and when the noise continued, he slipped out from under Crowley’s legs and into the shop where two women were fussing over a baby.  
“Liam, hush now, it’s all right.”   
“Hello there.” Aziraphale popped up next to the two women and looked at the baby, tsking gently before he picked him up and began bouncing the child gently in his arms.  
“There now little fellow, what seems to be the matter?”  
The baby quieted and peered up at the angel with wide brown eyes.  
“Liam, is it? I know it’s unsettling, the first year. You were all comfy and warm inside Mummy and now out here it’s loud and bright and busy and there’s lots of smells and sensations going on. Quite overwhelming, isn’t it? I cried a bit too, when I just started out on Earth.”  
Liam cooed at him and Aziraphale beamed.  
“Yes, there is a lot more of everything out here, isn’t there? But there’s good bits too.”  
One of the women continued gaping at him, while the other wandered over to the nearest shelf and crouched to inspect the books on the bottom row.  
“How did you do that?” the woman asked.   
“Oh, I just have a way with babies.”  
“I can see that. He usually hates being held by strangers, but he seems to love you!”  
“Are you two his mummies then?”  
“Yes. I’m Tiffany, that’s my wife Clarissa.”  
“How splendid. And little Liam here makes three.”  
“Yes.”  
“Why don’t you have a nice sit-down while she browses, then. I’m sure this young man is a handful when you’re out.”  
“He really is,” Tiffany agreed affectionately. “Clarissa calls him our little drama queen. Everything has to be just so.”  
“Hardly a drama queen, are you my boy?” the angel crooned to the baby. “Just particular, aren’t we? Nothing wrong with having good taste and reasonable expectations, is there? Certainly not.”  
Tiffany looked a little dazed as she settled into a chair and Aziraphale sent a little nudge her way so that she fell asleep. Poor dear hadn’t been sleeping well since young Liam had come home. He was a fussy little thing who insisted on being attended at all hours of the night. It wasn’t entirely his fault, poor mite. Entering the world in a separate corporeal form took getting used to--Aziraphale clearly remembered bursting into tears the first time he smelled a rose and then having a fresh round of crying when he cut his finger on a thorn. He healed it afterwards, of course, but there was a vivid memory of pain for the first time, the sharp sting as the thorn sliced open his fingertip and blood welled up in the cut, an intense shade of red that rivaled the rose.   
As Tiffany dozed lightly, getting some much-needed REM sleep, and Clarissa browsed, Aziraphale took young Liam and looked in on Crowley, who was sprawled even more thoroughly across the squashy sofa. Aziraphale smiled fondly and was only a little startled when Crowley sat up unexpectedly, pointing at Aziraphale with an accusing air.  
“Where did you get that?”  
Aziraphale peered around before realizing that Crowley was referring to the baby.  
“Oh this is Liam. I’m just minding him while his mum browses the shop and his other mum has a quick little nap in the chair by the window.”  
Crowley relaxed a little.  
“Oh, that’s all right then.”  
“Where did you think I’d gotten a baby from?” Aziraphale asked. “It’s not like they just hand them out on street corners.”  
“No,” Crowley said, “No, they’ve stopped that for the most part, thank---Someone. I dunno, angel. You seem to always turn up with things. And what in the world would we do with a human infant? We already did Warlock and that was quite the trip, wasn’t it?”  
“Oh he wasn’t so bad,” Aziraphale said fondly. “He loved planting things with me when he was small.”  
“No, I suppose he wasn’t all bad,” Crowley agreed. “Though you didn’t have to change any dirty nappies.”  
“I do remember toilet training though. He had a wee right there on my tulips!”  
Crowley snorted and Aziraphale glared at him.   
“Oh come on, angel, it was pretty funny.”  
“It was not!”  
In his arms, Liam made a little cooing noise and reached his pudgy little arms towards Crowley, who was looking at him over the lenses of his sunglasses.  
“Oh look, he wants to come see you!” Aziraphale sounded delighted as Crowley shook his head.  
“Absolutely not. I’m a demon. I don’t do children. Warlock was an exception--I thought he was the AntiChrist.”  
“Oh you loved it though. You were the nanny, after all.”  
“Because it was the best way to remain an infernal agent guiding him towards...infernalness!”  
Shaking his head in affectionate amusement, Aziraphale walked across the room and set Liam down on Crowley’s lap. Immediately Liam made a squawking, happy sound and reached with both hands for the sunglasses balanced on the demon’s hooked nose.  
“Oh look, he likes you!”  
“The glasses. He likes the glasses,” Crowley corrected, lifting Liam to offer him back to the angel. “Can’t blame him, they’re very in fashion these days.”  
“I’m sure,” Aziraphale agreed, looking deliberately away from Crowley.  
“Angel.”  
“Mmm?”  
“You seem to have forgotten something.”  
“Oh you’re right, I ought to check on that order I put in!” He sat down at a computer that had never been modern--never--and typed in the url he needed with two fingers. Crowley winced.   
“I meant the baby!”  
“Just a moment, dearest.”  
Crowley sighed and let Liam sit on his lap, where the little boy cooed and made a grab for his sunglasses.  
“Oh absolutely not,” Crowley said, pulling his face out of reach. “These are fantastically expensive.”  
Liam made another grab for them and Crowley huffed a sigh, pulling them off to put them into his pocket. His golden eyes caught the light and Liam’s mouth fell open. Out of the corner of his eye, Aziraphale saw Crowley tense up, but instead of crying or whatever Crowley had expected, Liam grabbed his nose and began to laugh when the demon made a surprised noise.  
“Oh you think that’s funny do you?” He gave the baby’s nose a gentle tweak back. “There, now I’ve got your nose!”  
The baby’s laugh shifted from a chortle to a deep belly-laugh as he grabbed at Crowley’s nose again, nearly doubling over when Crowley repeated the surprised noise he’d made the first time. Aziraphale turned in his chair to watch his companion play with the child, beaming at the sight. Crowley noticed after a moment and held Liam out to Aziraphale.   
“Right, I’ve entertained him while you did your bit now take it back.”  
“All right then, no need to whinge about it.” He took Liam and resumed bouncing him on his hip.  
“Who’s whinging? I’m not whinging about anything.”  
“Of course not. Go back to your nap then.”  
The angel breezed out and Crowley scowled, aggressively rearranging himself on the couch. He was not whinging, thank you very much. He was a demon and he had a reputation to maintain.  
Aziraphale was still bouncing Liam and pointing out different books to him when Tiffany sat up. To her, it seemed she had just taken a long breath and closed her eyes for a moment to absorb the quiet atmosphere of the shop. As far as she knew, she hadn’t been asleep, though she did feel startlingly refreshed. Clarissa looked up from her browsing and smiled at her wife and Aziraphale.  
“Sorry, I got a bit caught up. Ready to go love?”  
“You can look a bit more, Mr. Fell seems to have charmed Liam utterly.”  
“I did nothing of the sort, he’s a delightful little fellow.” Aziraphale handed the baby back to Tiffany. Liam immediately began nosing at her breast and she sat, draping a blanket over a shoulder to nurse him.   
“Just let me know if you need anything, I’ll be in the back.”  
He peered in on Crowley, who was lying on the couch with his eyes wide open, the sunglasses tucked in his front pocket.   
“Can’t sleep?”  
“I smell like a baby now.”  
“You could just miracle it away.”  
“No, I’m going to have to wash the entire suit. And this is dry-clean only!”  
“Poor dear,” Aziraphale sat down on the couch beside him and patted his arm sympathetically.   
“Fix it for me?” Crowley widened his eyes and gave a little pout that Aziraphale was almost proud of. Usually he was the one pouting over things and Crowley had done a very respectable impression.  
“If your miracle wouldn’t work, why would mine?”  
“I didn’t say it wouldn’t work, it just wouldn’t work as well.”  
“But mine will.”  
“It might.”  
“I rather like the smell of babies, like love and powder and newness.”  
“Ugh, sounds disgusting.”  
Aziraphale waved a hand over Crowley’s torso, shaking his head all the while.  
“There you are. All gone.”  
“Good, it was going to give me indigestion and there’s a new signature cocktail at this very exclusive club I mean to go to tonight. You can come with if you like.”  
“I think we both know that clubs aren’t really my scene. All that bebop and gyration.”  
“Bebop and gyration,” Crowley repeated. “You’re thinking of a carnival.”  
“I don’t think so, but do let me know how it is.”  
“I could treat you to dinner first.”  
“Well that’s another thing entirely, isn’t it?”  
It was.  
And though Aziraphale kindly did not bring up Crowley’s interaction with the baby, he did sigh fondly when he recalled it later in the evening as he settled in to a nice bath. Crowley could have his own sort of fun at the club, he was quite content with a bubble bath, a good novel, and a record playing in the background. To each his own, he supposed.


	8. Gillian L.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter based on the charming Yelp Reviews written by It'sClydeBitches  
> (https://archiveofourown.org/works/19364431/chapters/46364224)

Gillian L.  
The Hague, The Netherlands  
283 friends  
256 reviews  
60 photos

Anyone know if the old Bentley parked out front is for sale?  
Update: It’s really, really, really not  
\-----------

The front of AZ Fell and Co Antiquarian and Unusual Books was known for several things. It was known for its unusual hours, its eccentric owner, its age, and also, for the sleek black antique Bentley that was perpetually parked in front of it. Aziraphale didn’t notice it much, it was just an accessory that came along with Crowley, but he was aware that Crowley had more affection for that car than he had for most humans (and all angels, save himself). Which is why when a young woman, tall and blonde and with a charming Dutch accent asked him about the car with Crowley in earshot, he stiffened.  
“No, the Bentley isn’t mine.”  
“I’ve been asking around about it, it’s parked here all the time and I was wondering if it was for sale?”  
Aziraphale couldn’t see Crowley but he could feel him in the way that humans could sometimes sense someone watching them. He knew the demon well enough to know that he was probably rising slowly from wherever he was sprawled, a serpent preparing to strike. He turned to look around the shop and caught sight of his companion sauntering slowly towards them.  
“It’s my car.”  
“How did you keep it in such incredible condition? It looks like it just rolled off the lot!”  
“It ought to,” Crowley purred. “I work very hard to keep it looking that way.”  
Aziraphale was already nervous but beginning to get more so. There were two versions of Crowley’s temper. One was fast and sharp and angry and the other was this, the molasses-slow drawl that lead to eventual death or other unpleasantness.  
“Can we go out and take a look at it?”  
“Certainly; it is parked conveniently close, isn’t it?”  
The woman looked confused for a moment before nodding. As the bell on the door chimed as she pushed it open, Aziraphale watched Crowley’s back as he followed. His hips were doing that sinuous thing that seemed physically impossible but made it very difficult to look away.  
“Is it for sale?” he heard the woman ask as the door swung shut.  
Aziraphale was torn between going into the back room and staying to make sure that Crowley didn’t commit any murders in front of his bookshop. He took the coward’s way out. He only felt a little bit bad about it as he said,  
“Is that my office phone? Best go answer it, shall I?” and scurried away into the back and threw his attention into the closest project he could find--repairing the spine of an old Jane Austen.  
Crowley’s voice didn’t ever raise to a shout, he kept it that same languorous pace and tone and the angel dove into his repair project, gently removing the dried glue and carefully picking the stitches that were unraveling. He became absorbed to the point that he didn’t notice when the bell on the shop door rang again, nor when Crowley slouched against the doorframe and studied him through dark-lensed glasses.  
“Angel.”  
Aziraphale jumped in his chair, nearly damaging the book he was repairing.  
“Crowley! When did you come back in?”  
“A bit ago. I saw you’d wandered off...afraid I’d do something rash?”  
Aziraphale avoided eye contact and returned his attention to the book.  
“Oh, I wouldn’t say it was out of the question. You’re very fond of that car and you did just get it back after the whole...fire situation.”  
“The whole fire situation. You mean when I drove my car through a wall of fire and across Britain to get to Tadfeild?” He sounded a little dangerous and Aziraphale ignored him. The book needed his attention, whereas Crowley would have just as many theatrics whether he was watching or not.  
“Yes, that. Is she all right, the young lady?”  
“She’s fine angel. Not a scratch on her.”  
“How did you dissuade her from attempting to purchase the car?”  
“I told her it wasn’t for sale.”  
Aziraphale clamped the book and set down the needle he had threaded for restitching so he could look at Crowley.  
“And that’s all?” His tone was mild, but he had on that face that looked like he was waiting for Crowley to own up to pinching sweets before supper or some such thing.  
Crowley shifted uncomfortably.  
“I may have growled at her a bit.”  
“Just growled at her a bit?”  
“And shown her my face for a moment.”  
“What, the serpent one?”  
“Fangs, eyes, it’s all very intimidating. Just to make sure she didn’t get any ideas.”  
“Right. And what sort of ideas was she going to get?”  
“You know...ideas. Evil ones. You’re an angel, you wouldn't understand.”  
“Of course not.”  
Aziraphale returned his attention to the book and Crowley reflected on the tirade he’d hissed at the human who coveted his Bentley. It was quite a good tirade if he did say so himself. Wrath wasn’t one of his preferred sins, but he was quite pleased with the balance of rage and menace he’d achieved. Showing his face might have been a bit excessive, but she wouldn’t remember that anyway, just a healthy dose of shock that put her off thinking about it too much. Human minds were like that for the most part. They had a sort of filter on them that kept anything too unusual from taking up brain space, with the exception of children under a certain age, those with a little bit of what humans called ‘the gift’ but was actually a lack of the filter on their minds. The very old sometimes also saw them, but for the most part, they’d lived long enough that they assumed it was something else or blamed it on age.  
As Aziraphale was ignoring him, Crowley flopped onto the squashy sofa and pulled out his phone, opening several social media apps. His most recent work, the pineapple on pizza debate, was dying down and he was still ruminating on what the next contentious nonsense issue was going to plague the internet. In the meantime, he reposted art without attributing or linking the artist, left rude or nonsensical comments on news articles and videos, and tweaked several of those images that checked if you were a robot to make them completely illegible. He also took Twitter down for about an hour, just to enjoy the chaos before he put it back up, removing the ‘verified’ blue check from several accounts with millions of followers. There were a few other things to do--add an extra letter in news articles so they looked misspelled, changing the font of a business’s website entirely to Comic Sans and making it crash when their developers tried to change it back. He had every intention of making a few of the government websites completely impossible to navigate, but upon exploring one to determine how to best spread chaos, he found that they were already so poorly designed that any changes he made might actually be more helpful, not less.  
“I was thinking about bouillabaisse.”  
“What about it?”  
“I think I’d like some.”  
“So you want to pop over to France, is that it?”  
“No, I’d rather made a trip of it if we were going all the way to France. There’s a lovely little French restaurant--well it’s not actually that small--that serves a superb one.”  
“And I suppose you’d like to go for supper?”  
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”  
Crowley smiled at him and Aziraphale was momentarily pinned by his gaze, frozen as the demon looked him over slowly, like he was something to be devoured.  
“I’ll drive.”


	9. Billy H.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on the reviews in this image by ItsClydeBitches 

**Billy H.**

Austen, TX

40 friends

2073 reviews

774 photos

QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS QUEER BOOKS SO MANY QUEER BOOKS!!!

\----

The section of the bookshop which had grown most since the most recent millennium was the LGBTQIA+ section. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The bookshop had always kept plenty of books of that sort, but they hadn’t even been front and center as they were now. They weren’t tucked away in the back with other things that humans might find objectionable like the book of recipes which had human flesh as the base, or the early printed editions of the Kama Sutra, or some of the bound theses he’d rescued from the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft before the Nazis burned it to the ground. Well, they weren’t anymore; they had been. Aziraphale himself wasn’t ashamed of them, not then and not now, but if one got a reputation for carrying such things, it gathered attention from entirely the wrong people, including those who considered themselves a kind of moral police force and also the actual police force who still had a few laws on the books about obscene materials. 

For the most part, that had all died down since roughly 2014 and everything was all open and legal. Well most of it. The papers and bound research from Institut für Sexualwissenschaft were still kept in the back, but that was because they were valuable and he didn’t want them damaged by browsing fingers that had been touching the rails of escalators or had crisp crumbs stuck to them or, heaven forbid, had been licked to make grasping the edge of a page easier. The very thought was horrifying. Everything else though--the coming of age books about queer teens, the memoirs about growing up, comedies and romances and science fiction and fantasy and mysteries and nonfiction and everything--everything else was out on the shelf for readers to take. It didn’t surprise Aziraphale when readers began to appear--young ones, mostly, but also adults well into the middle of their lives and an occasional grizzled older person cradling one of his books and smiling like relief, like a confirmation of something they always knew was true.

He was usually against people buying his books, but this was somehow different. These people needed them. They weren’t going to sit them under a glass case in a room and only look at them as an object of value, like a statue or a piece of jewelry. They would treasure them in the way that a person finding an oasis treasured that first sip of cool water after days of sun and sand. That process might involve things Aziraphale usually abhorred such as dog-eared pages and pencil or worse, pen, markings on the pages or in margins, in water damage and torn pages and broken spines from being taken absolutely everywhere, but the books would be cherished. They would be loved in a way that many of his would-be buyers would never understand, which is why they were would-be buyers and not buyers outright. And anyhow, Aziraphale always kept first edition copies of volumes he particularly liked, so it wasn’t as though every copy was being loved in the rough way that the ones he sold would be. 

April’s end was quickly approaching and the cold fierce rains of early April had faded into warmer ones. It was still raining, of course, it was nearly always raining, but as a rainbow arched overhead through the warm spring drizzle, Aziraphale was hit with conflicting emotions. The queer community had embraced the rainbow, had emblazoned it on flags and shirts and pins and any other material they could find and Aziraphale liked that, he really did. But the rainbow still struck a note of mild horror and intense sorrow within him, the memory of Crowley looking at him with wide yellow eyes saying,

“Not kids though, you can’t kill kids.”

And Aziraphale hadn’t had a real answer, not the kind Crowley was looking for. He still didn’t.

There was a conversation he’d had once, one that was a little fuzzy because he’d been doing a lot of drinking with Gilbert Baker, who despite having explained the meanings of his choi ces--pink was for sex, red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, turquoise for magic, indigo for harmony and violet for spirit, and in the later flag with red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for harmony and purple for spirit--he wasn’t getting it, wasn’t getting that the rainbow was a confession and an apology. 

_ “No you don’t understand,” Aziraphale had protested somewhat blearily. “There was a flood that killed everyone...well not everyone but a good portion of near Eden...but after it was all over, once the water had gone down and the corpses had floated off or been eaten by sea creatures, it was in the sky. She promised never to do it again, like there hadn’t been a mass slaughter.” _

_ “It’s a bit like that with us though, isn’t it?” Gilbert had replied, equally drunk. _

_ “What?” _

_ “We’ve been slaughtered for being who we are as well. At least the Almighty had a reason for the flood, didn’t He? All the wickedness. We never did anything except love each other.” _

_ “They weren’t all wicked! They were just humans! Humans doing their best like they always do.” _

_ “Listen!” Gilbert leaned forward and patted Aziraphale’s sleeve in the intense way of only the fanatical and the very drunk. “They’re not going to apologize to us for this. But we can still put up the rainbow. We can still say that we’re here, we’ve survived, and in the future it won’t happen again. We’ll make sure it doesn’t, not like it did before.” _

_ “But they still all died!” _

_ “And this is how we remember. We remember and we...how is it you Engligh say it? We carry on. We keep going with a battle cry and with the memory of everyone who came before us with our flag, united all together. A nation,” he paused, swaying.  _

_ “A nation,” he repeated emphatically, and promptly passed out on the table.  _

_ “That’s beautiful,” Aziraphale said quietly to the unconscious man, tears rolling down his flushed cheeks. Once he was sober he wouldn’t allow himself to let these emotions pool within him, so he sat for another hour sipping truly terrible scotch and letting himself feel.  _

Blinking himself back to the present, Aziraphale studied the rainbow and found that while he’d been remembering, a young man with brown eyes and curly black hair that reminded him intensely of Adam--the first Adam, not the former AntiChrist--had moved to stand beside him.

“Pretty, innit?”

“It is that,” the angel agreed. However else he felt about the rainbow, it was indeed a beautiful creation. 

The young man stood silently for another moment before softly clearing his throat.

“I was wondering if you had  _ Brother to Brother: New Writings by Gay Black Men _ in stock?”

“Well of course, it’s essential!” Aziraphale shook off the dust of memory and took the young man to the correct shelf, holding out the book to him. The human took it, wrapping his hands around the burgundy cover.

“Is there anything else I can help you find, young man?”

The youth stopped and looked at him, eyes wide with wonder.

“You...how did…”

Aziraphale looked at him, the swell of breasts under his baggy shirt, the wide hips and curve of thighs under the boy’s black jeans. He’d made this mistake before, knowing things that humans hadn’t told him. Sometimes they were afraid, other times pleased or embarrassed or a mixture of all three. 

“I just know,” the angel said simply. It was the truth and didn’t dip into his divine nature. The boy smiled shyly and Aziraphale had to squint because of the intense brightness of the joy streaming off of him. He was one of the first to see the young man as he was.

“What’s your name?”

“Jessica,” the boy said. “I’m thinking of changing it though.”

“I think Jessica is a lovely name.”

“It’s a girl’s name, though. And I was thinking that it might make it easier.”

“It’s your name, dear boy. If you want a new one to fit you better, there’s nothing wrong with that. But there’s no reason to get rid of your name if you like it as it is.”

“It’s a girl’s name,” Jessica repeated emphatically and Aziraphale nodded.

“Gender doesn’t belong to any things, it’s for people,” the angel said. “However, if you don’t feel like a Jessica, I rather think you might be a Joshua. Or perhaps a Jabulani or Jace or Josiah or Javon or Javier. If you’re sticking with the J of course.”

“I’m still thinking about it.”

“Plenty to consider then. I’ll be about when you’re ready to go, or feel free to sit and read it here.”

“Thanks Mr. Fell.”

“Anytime, young man.”

He walked back to the window where the rainbow had faded from view and spotted Billy, one of his regulars, nose buried in  _ Ceremonies  _ by Essex Hemphill, eyes a little wet. The angel smiled and walked on through the store, appreciating the quiet buzz of readers thinking and turning pages. He had just settled down with his copy of  _ The Lawrence Browne Affair _ by Cat Sebastian when he felt Crowley hovering beside him. The bell on the door hadn’t rung because Crowley had glared at it on his way in and it had, understandably, fallen silent. 

“What’re you reading now?”

“The Lawrence Browne Affair.”

“Any good?” 

“I’m only a few chapters in, but I’m enjoying it thus far.”

“What’s it about?”

Aziraphale looked up then. Crowley was uninterested in books as a general rule, but if he was bored enough to talk about books, it was better to chat with him than let him get into trouble. He’d been asleep for at least a day and a half, so it was unlikely he’d settle for a quiet nap in the back room.

“Well there’s this gentleman, Lawrence Browne, a brilliant scientist and a recluse, who the whole village thinks is mad and one day, a man turns up claiming to be his secretary.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, and the other man, Georgie, is claiming to be his secretary but he’s actually a con man.”

Crowley raised his eyebrows above his glasses.

“That actually sounds interesting, angel.”

“It’s delightful so far. They’ve each realized that they are falling in love with each other.”

“What?”

“It’s lovely.”

“A con man and a gentleman?” Crowley scoffed.”In love?”

Aziraphale sighed happily.

“It’s romantic, isn’t it?”

“Unrealistic, more like. Gentleman’s going to get his heart broken, mark my words. Con men sorts aren’t to be trusted. We’re wily that way.”

“It’s a romance, Crowley. They have to end up happily ever after, it’s in the rules.”

Crowley rolled his eyes.

“Sentimental of you.”

“I am an angel, my dear. Sentiment comes with the territory.”

Aziraphale returned his attention to the book and was just getting settled into that pleasant in-between place that deep readers inhabit when a soft voice asked,

“Mr. Fell?”

Aziraphale did his best not to look irritated and set the book down again. Billy was at the counter, holding  _ Ceremonies  _ like it was a holy relic.

“Have you got anything else like this?”

“I have dozens of volumes of queer poetry, Billy. You might like  _ A Place Called No Homeland _ , I think I’ve got a copy tucked away here somewhere.”

He bustled through the queer section and returned holding another paperback book, smiling.

“I think you’ll like this one. And are you taking  _ Ceremonies  _ home with you?”

“Not today, but I get my paycheck at the end of the week and I’ll be back then.”

“Billy, you know I don’t mind if you--”

“Mr. Fell if you keep giving away books, you’ll never make enough to cover rent!”

“Surely one won’t hurt,” Azirphale wheedled and the young man shook his finger at the angel as though he was a child and not a six-thousand year old being with the power to smite him from the face of the earth.

“No, Mr. Fell. I’ll be back on Friday for this, so you can put it in the reserve pile. I have another half hour before I need to go catch the bus, so I’ll start reading this new one.”

“I think you’ll really enjoy it.”

Billy gave him a sort of half wave and walked back to the seat he’d previously inhabited to curl up with the new volume. Aziraphale scanned the bookshop to make sure there was no one else who needed his attention before he placed Billy’s book in the reserve pile and picked his book back up to read. Crowley was spread across the floor behind the counter, using a stack of books as an elbow rest and with a miracled pillow against his back as he scrolled through his phone. Aziraphale sighed and shook his head. How Crowley could spend hours staring at a phone screen but found staring at pages for the same amount of time to be a total bore was beyond him. 

On the floor, Crowley rolled his neck to one side, then the other, and miracled himself a pair of headphones--the obnoxiously expensive sort that was larger than necessary and had the name of a celebrity emblazoned across. He tapped on the screen again and miracled himself another pillow. He could have perched himself on the couch in the back room, but he was enjoying Aziraphale’s presence and technically, lounging across the floor taking up space was inconsiderate at the very least. Not sloth really, but he wasn’t really employed by Hell any more and if he wanted to deal in minor inconveniences instead of in mortal sins, it was his business.

A warm, male voice began,

“The Lawrence Browne Affair, by Cat Sebastian. Read by Gary Furlong.” There was a pause and he began to read. 

“Cornwall, 1816. All this fuss about a couple of small explosions. As far as Lawrence cared, the explosions were entirely beside the point.”

When Aziraphale prodded him several hours later to inquire about dinner, Crowley seemed reluctant to get up, but did anyway. 

“What were you listening to?”

“The new Daft Punk album,” Crowley lied and Aziraphale nodded.

“More bebop, is it?”  
“Electronic music, EDM really. It’s all made with computers.”

“Computerized music?” Aziraphale looked positively offended. “The very idea is atrocious!”

Crowley shrugged lazily.

“Kebabs all right with you?”

“Kebabs sound lovely. It’d be a nice walk if it weren’t for the rain.”

“Why don’t you finish your book, angel? I’ll drive over and pick them up.”

“Oh would you? That would be splendid.”

“No, stop that,” Crowley said, scrambling for the door before the angel could thank him or comment on his thoughtfulness or some equally horrible thing. He was unlocking the Bentley with a snap of his fingers before he was to the curb and once he settled in, he synced the Bluetooth on his phone to his car and the voice actor resumed reading ‘The Lawrence Browne Affair’ aloud to him.

The worse part was he couldn’t even mock Aziraphale for reading a book with naughty bits in it because that would mean admitting that he was reading it.


	10. Gabriela G

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by the excellent queer books I mentioned in the last chapter, whoever made the Vine compilations that keep my life moving together, and port, which sounds very fancy and I would probably hate.

Chapter 10: Gabriela G  
Gabriela G.  
London, United Kingdom  
3 friends  
22 reviews  
1 photos

Run by this delightfully frumpy guy who sometimes hands out biscuits from a sewing tin like my gran used to. He asked me if I was looking for anything in particular and I told him my name was Jared, I was 19, but sadly I’d never learned how to read. I have NEVER seen a man more confused in my life. 10/10 would meme him again.  
_________________

There were, if you counted, seven tins of biscuits in Aziraphale’s bookshop. This did not include the flat above, only the bookshop and the little kitchenette with the sink and two-burner stove and the kettle in it. There were three in the back room that Aziraphale used as his office--one tin of regular biscuits, a tin with the pink icing (the same kind that were fed to the Antichrist’s foster parents, actually), and a small tin of chocolate biscuits which had exactly one and a half biscuits in it. There was another tin behind the counter, one tucked in the corner where Crowley often curled up by the radiator, and one in the kitchenette right next to the kettle. He enjoyed nibbling on biscuits here and there throughout the day, but his greatest reason for having them was his customers.  
Mrs. Havish from a few blocks down was particularly fond of ones with an orange glaze on them and would come by a few times a month to sit with Aziraphale and talk about Jane Austen while they nibbled their way through the tin. Crowley, though he didn’t eat as a general rule, would allow Aziraphale to feed him one or two chocolate biscuits here and there, but only because it made the angel happy and definitely not because he liked Aziraphale feeding him. Some of the queer teens that came in to read on Saturdays made a habit of asking for the tin instead of coming back up to the counter over and over.   
Regulars aside, he liked feeding people. Aziraphale himself enjoyed eating a great deal--Crowley called him a hedonist, but it was more than that. He liked knowing that he was giving sustenance to the humans that She had created, the ones he had grown to love and even admire. He liked feeling the glow of appreciation, of happiness that some people displayed upon being offered a biscuit, especially small children and teenagers that were used to being shooed out of places. Which was why he was especially delighted to offer a biscuit to a young woman in jeans, trainers, and a green tee-shirt with a cursive letter ‘V’ on the chest. He had seen her before he thought, and beamed at her as she came in.   
They’d never spoken in much depth, but she looked as though she might be one of the teens who came by on Saturdays. Perhaps she had been there once before? He wasn’t supposed to be forgetful, but as he had once said to the Almighty, ‘Lose my own head next’. Six thousand years of memories did tend to take up a bit of space in the mind.   
“Looking for anything in particular, my dear?” Aziraphale asked as he held out the biscuit tin. The girl took one and flipped her fringe out of her eyes.  
“My name is Jared, I’m nineteen, and sadly, I never learned how to read.”  
Aziraphale blinked rapidly, in surprise resembling a gif that wouldn’t load properly. He opened and shut his mouth a few times while the youth wheeled around on her heel and strode back out. She had at least taken a biscuit.  
Later that evening, Crowley and Aziraphale took a nice walk though St. James Park and Aziraphale cleared his throat.  
“Crowley, you’re more in touch with the youth than I am and I’m rather concerned.”  
“Oh?”  
“I had a girl come in today who didn’t know how to read. Nineteen years old, and she’d never learned to read! Has there been some failing on the part of the education system, do you think? The girl should be preparing for university or getting a job, but the poor dear is illiterate!”  
Crowley paused and tucked his hands deeper into his pockets.  
“I haven’t done any interfering in the school system...well I did have a hand in the whole gendered uniforms thing, but I didn’t think they’d take it so seriously!”  
“But nothing about removing reading from the curriculum?”  
“Of course not! You know I have a soft--that is to say I don’t think much of wasting major temptations on kids.”  
“No, I know,” Aziraphale agreed, ignoring Crowley’s little slip. “I just feel I ought to do something, you know? Get her into a class or some such thing.”  
“If she’s come in before, she’ll probably come back,” Crowley offered, pausing to lean over and inhale the scent of a night phlox bloom that hung its head over the path. “Did she buy anything? You could look her up by the receipt.”  
“No, she didn’t buy anything, Crowley, she can’t read!” Aziraphale sounded more than a little distraught at this point and Crowley stood back up and cupped the angel’s elbow in his palm.  
“Now now, angel, you’re getting a bit upset over something that can be miracled better. What was her name?”  
“Jared!” Aziraphale wailed, and Crowley froze.  
“What?”  
“Her name is Jared and she’s nineteen and she never learned to read!” He sounded near tears which was why it was particularly surprising when Crowley snorted and then doubled over with laughter.  
“Crowley? Crowley, this is serious! Illiteracy is the first sign of societal decline!”  
“Jared--” wheezed Crowley. His glasses had slipped down his nose and tears of mirth pooled in his eyes.  
“Jared, nineteen, never learned to--” another gale of laughter set him off and Aziraphale crossed his arms over his chest, looking very put out.  
“Crowley this is no laughing matter! Stop that this instant!”  
The demon did not. He continued laughing for another solid minute and when Aziraphale turned to walk away, Crowley snatched him by the sleeve, rubbing his face dry with a pocket handkerchief as he gulped in air, trying to stop the laughter.  
“Angel it’s not--” he giggled (demonically, of course). “Angel it’s a Vine.”  
“What do vines have to do with anything at a time like this?” Aziraphale half-shouted, trying to tug his sleeve from Crowley’s grasp.  
“No it’s...it’s an internet joke. She was funning you.”  
The angel looked offended and Crowley bit his tongue to keep from laughing at the expression on his companion’s face. Once he’d mastered himself, he let go of Aziraphale’s sleeve.  
“Here, let me show you.”  
Aziraphale looked less like he was going to burst into tears or write a strongly-worded letter and more like he was just going to say something pointed but emotionally devastating, so Crowley pulled the video up.  
“It’s a funny video someone made. See?”  
Aziraphale’s face went from upset to puzzled.  
“Why on earth would he joke about illiteracy?”  
Crowley bit his tongue again. It was a good thing that he didn’t need to breathe, not technically, because the only thing keeping him from laughing was not having enough air to do so. He took another moment before he felt he could speak safely again.  
“It’s just one of those things. I am in touch with the youth, you know. You’ll have to trust me on this.”  
“Well I think it’s in very poor taste,” Aziraphale huffed. “I’m sure there’s something else he can joke about.”  
It took every ounce of demonic strength for Crowley to keep a straight face as he said,   
“You know, perhaps you ought to comment on the video and tell him so.”  
“Do you think it would help?”  
Crowley shrugged instead of laughing some more.  
“You know I don’t understand how these things work, you’ll have to help me with it.”  
“Of course, angel. But first, maybe a nightcap? There’s some lovely port that I picked up at an estate sale.”  
“Crowley! How morbid!”  
“A bit yeah.”  
“What year is it?”  
“That’s my angel. Come on to my flat, I’ll open up the port and we’ll see what we can remember from the year it was bottled.”  
“That sounds delightful.”  
Crowley straightened himself to his full height and winced, quickly sending a little demonic miracle to fix the rib he’d broken from laughing so hard. Amazing things, the youth came up with these days. He’d have to phone Adam later and see if he could think of another meme to confuse Aziraphale with. He wasn’t the Antichrist anymore, but the lad still had a good head for mischief.


	11. Colie A.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So apparently ItsClydeBitches made a part 2 of the Yelp reviews thing so...I might have to do that as well after I finish all 17 chapters of this.

Colie A.

Enola, PA

201 friends

2778 reviews

10382 photos

  
  


I’m setting the record straight here since there are a bunch of reviews claiming it’s just London folklore: there is a snake at A.Z. Fell’s. Must be an exotic pet he usually keeps upstairs because I’ve only ever seen it twice. Is it big? Yes. Scary? Fuck yes, but I’ve never seen it do anything more than give a warning hiss at this drunk who wandered in and started yelling. (Are snakes good guard dogs? This one is.) The other time he was just chilling on top of one of the shelves. Snoozing, I guess. I asked Mr. Fell if I could pet him and he said maybe after he woke up, but then I had to get to class and all.

Afraid of snakes? Steer clear. Otherwise I’d really recommend popping in and seeing if he’s around. Idk, maybe I’m just a snake fan but he looks super sweet and chill. Life is short. Boop the snake snoot.

________________

Each month after Armageddon’t that Crowley and Aziraphale spent together, they grew closer. They’d always been closer than any other angel and demon in history, and had struck up what Aziraphale had once drunkenly proclaimed ‘a jolly good partnership’ and Crowley had called ‘a tolerable arrangement’ before then, of course. However, once they’d swapped bodies and declared themselves to be on their own side, things were different. For one thing, they saw each other weekly instead of every decade or so. For another, as it happens with friends, they began to relax a bit. For Aziraphale that meant that he allowed Crowley to see the parts of his personality that were less-than-angelic. How he got cranky when he saw someone litter, and how irritatingly specific he was about having his tea just so. He wouldn’t say anything regardless, but instead of keeping on the ‘Heavenly Mask’, he let Crowley see the downturn of his mouth, the tightness around his eyes.

Before the whole debacle, (that is, Armageddon), Aziraphale would have just miracled it the way he liked it, but he and Crowley both were trying not to waste miracles on trivial things. Just because their respective Offices were leaving them alone didn’t mean that they had to draw unnecessary attention to themselves, and considering the amount of tea Aziraphale drank, miracling each cup the way he liked it would have been somewhat excessive. For Crowley, that meant that he spent a lot more time in his serpent form. The first few times he’d changed, it was with hesitancy. He liked his snake form as much as his human one, and though Aziraphale had known him for 6,000 years and even met him first in that form, Crowley was a bit touchy about it. It was a stark reminder that he was a demon and while he had settled into that identity, he preferred not to remind Aziraphale of it.

When Aziraphale found him in that form, curled up on his chair by the radiator or in a sunny window, he’d only stroked Crowley’s scales and cooed at him what a fine-looking handsome serpent he was. Not that Crowley enjoyed the praise--he usually hissed something rude back at the angel just to remind him that he was THE Serpent of Eden, and was not to be coddled and stroked like some common pet. Aziraphale either didn’t understand his hissings or ignored them, because whenever he saw Crowley as a serpent, he did the same thing and didn’t seem put off by the hissing and occasional showing of fangs. And in the past six months, Crowley had become comfortable with it. Which is not to day, mind, that he liked it. Because he most certainly did not. It was an affront to his dignity. Even if it did feel very nice. Being in that form around Aziraphale was a show of trust, even if he’d never said a word about the context.

Crowley had just settled in his snake form on Aziraphale’s book counter and was preparing for a good nap, when the bell on the door chimed. He lifted his head a little and took in the newest human, tongue flicking out to taste the air. If he’d been in his human form he would have wrinkled his nose because the human smelled like cheap alcohol, and not even a decent-tasting variety. 

“And they’ll see about all that rubbish!” the drunk declared and Crowley raised his head a little higher to study the man as he stumbled about towards the counter, now bellowing about some woman and the natural order of things. That simply wouldn’t do; Crowley was trying to have a nap for fuck’s sake. He could hardly do that with some smelly moron making a racket and stinking up the place. Raising himself more fully, Crowley bared his teeth as the drunk came closer, finally catching sight of him.

“What,” the drunk said, “Is a bloody giant fucking snake doing here?”

Some of the other customers were watching at this point, and Crowley had a reputation to protect. Rearing up as high as he could go, Crowley hissed, feigning a strike in the direction of the drunk, who stumbled back. As he was picking himself up from the floor, Crowley began to slither down the counter and onto the rug, approaching the intruder with an air of serpentine menace that he’d perfected sometime in the first year after Eden. The drunk half-ran out of the bookshop and Crowley hissed after him, for proper effect. Which is, of course, when Aziraphale chose to appear from wherever he’d been previously.

“Oh you scared him off,” the angel sounded pleased. “Such a good snake you are.”

With absolutely no respect for the menacing beast that he was, Crowley found himself being scooped up and having the top of his head scratched.

“Shall I turn the heat lamp on for you? Such hard work you’ve done, you deserve a nice nap, don’t you?”

While he objected to the treatment he was currently receiving, Crowley found that Aziraphale did have a point--he was deserving of a nap after defending his angel’s bookshop from societal menaces. Generally he had no problem with societal menaces, he encouraged them in fact, but it felt lovely to have that spot behind his eye scratched and a heat lamp did sound very nice. He made a mental note to do something particularly demonic later to remind Aziraphale exactly whom he was dealing with.

It was May the next time that Crowley got particular attention as a serpent. He was dozing atop a shelf, some of him draped over a stack of Oscar Wilde books that Aziraphale was particularly fond of. The angel gave him some nice scratches and had crooned a few compliments at him before going back about his business and Crowley dropped easily into slumber. He slept through most of the afternoon.

During that time, Aziraphale was delighted to see one of the students who popped in from time to time--Colie, an American studying abroad for a semester. She paused in her browsing to admire the black coils of Crowley whom was fast asleep.

“Is he a fan of Oscar Wilde?” Colie asked and Aziraphale chuckled.

“I think he’s a bit jealous of him, to be honest. I’m such an admirer of dear Oscar’s work, I do believe that he resents the attention I give to those volumes.”

Colie grinned in response.

“Well he is a gorgeous boy, it makes sense that he’d be a bit vain.”

“Vainer than a peacock, as they say,” the bookseller agreed and Colie paused, looking back at Aziraphale for permission.

“Can I pet him?”

“Maybe after he wakes up, dear. You know how particular some creatures are about getting their sleep.”

“Sure, Mr. Fell. No problem.”

She browsed and then hung around a bit more, but Crowley slept on and eventually she bid Aziraphale goodbye, leaving the shop quiet and pleasantly empty. It was a bit early to close, but Aziraphale was no longer interested in customers for the day, so he flipped the sign to ‘closed’, locked the door, and scooped up a drowsy snake from the bookshelf, carrying him upstairs to his flat. There was a chaise lounge in the living room perfect for reading on and he selected a book before settling Crowley in his lap. When Crowley hissed an objection, the angel tutted softly at him.

“I know you don’t like being moved, but it was going to get chilly down there and then you’d get stiff and cranky. At least this way, you’ve got the heat you need.”

Another disgruntled hiss, but Crowley was already arranging himself around Aziraphale, curling around his torso and resting his head slightly below the hollow of the angel’s throat where it was warm and Aziraphale’s entirely superfluous heartbeat lulled him back to sleep. 

“Such a lovely serpent,” the angel said absently, stroking one of his coils. And he was.


	12. Jeremy W.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seriously y'all, thank you so much for all the reviews and kudos. They keep me writing because I know you're waiting to read the next chapter!

Jeremy W.  
London, United Kingdom  
86 friends  
409 reviews  
12 photos

I live down the street from A.Z. Fell’s and let me tell you, this place is spooky as fuck. All sorts of weird lights and noises coming from it. At all times of the day and night too. Either this bowtie wearing bookworm has one crazy sex life or the place is haunted. Jury’s out on which.  
_______________________

It was two-thirty in the morning and Crowley was drunk and bored. This was nearly universally agreed to be a bad combination. Aziraphale was equally drunk, but not as bored and much to Crowley’s delight, feeling disinclined to interfere with Crowley’s methods of self-entertainment--making the lights of the building brighten and dim to spell rude words in morse code. He’d initially done it by making them flick on and off but Aziraphale complained that it made his head ache and Crowley adjusted his mischief just enough to keep Aziraphale from ruining his fun.   
-... --- .-.. .-.. --- -.-. -.- … went the lights. Crowley chuckled and began spelling out another phrase.  
.- --.. .. .-. .- .--. .... .- .-.. . / -.. --- / -.-- --- ..- / ..-. .- -. -.-. -.-- / - .- -.- . .- .-- .- -.-- ..--..  
“Hmm,” the angel said. “Crab rangoons sound marvelous.”  
.- -. -.-- .--. .-.. .- -.-. . / .. -.   
“Just talk to me,” Aziraphale said crossly. “The lights trick is probably wreaking havoc on the wiring.”  
The demon grinned and gestured at the record player in the corner of Aziraphale’s book-stuffed sitting room. It began to play, though the sounds of a full orchestra playing classical music were warped, bent so the sound seemed to be words, only spoken by a full orchestra of instruments.  
Any...place….in….part...icu….lar...you...fan...see?  
“If you’re trying to irritate me, it’s working.”  
“I’m not even trying that hard.”  
The angel ‘hmph’ed halfheartedly and Crowley chuckled.   
“Crab rangoons then. Anything else?”  
“Dumplings maybe.”  
“Dim sum, then.”  
“That sounds lovely. I wouldn’t want to wake anyone up or put them out, though.”  
“There’s a 24 hour Chinese place somewhere in SoHo, I’m certain of it,” said Crowley, who wasn’t certain of it at all but had no problem waking someone up and convincing them that they had an urgent need to make takeaway and deliver it to the bookshop.   
“If they’re already open, I suppose that’s no trouble to them.”  
“Of course not.”  
“As long as you call them. And pay them when they deliver.”  
The demon rolled his eyes, mostly for dramatic effect, and groaned.  
“Crowley,” Aziraphale said in a manner that would have been warningly if he hadn’t been so drunk and slumped in his armchair, feet propped up on the coffee table.  
“Oh all right. I don’t want to hear you fussing about it for the rest of the night.”  
“Who’s fussing?” mumbled the angel. “I’m not fussing.”  
“Of course not,” Crowley agreed as he looked up the name of the Chinese place he knew Aziraphale was fond of and dialed their number.  
“Yes, I’d like an order of dumplings--steamed or fried, angel?--Steamed. An order of crab rangoons, two egg rolls, and one of the boneless spare ribs. Anything else, angel?”  
Aziraphale shook his head.  
“Yeah that’s it. And delivery, not pickup.”  
While Crowley was busy with the phone, Aziraphale took the time to admire his profile in the lamplight. The demon was vain, but with good reason, and Aziraphale had always been an admirer of beauty. He had sharp features, and with his sunglasses off, his yellow eyes caught and reflected the light. He was long and lean, a study in angles and clean lines from the tilt of his head to his legs, draped over the arm of the couch. He didn’t have much in the way of lips, but he was a serpent, after all. Still, the knife’s edge of his jawline was tantalizing and Aziraphale allowed himself to imagine tracing it with one finger, or maybe his tongue.  
When Crowley hung up the phone, Aziraphale tore his eyes away and redirected them to the ceiling. He could feel Crowley’s gaze on him, warm as a physical touch, and he shivered a little. If he were a braver being, he’d turn his head and meet Crowley’s eyes, look to see if the demon was looking t him in the same way that he looked back. Aziraphale, however, was a self-professed coward. He wasn’t sure he could bear it if he looked at Crowley and his companion of 6,000 years had an expression of disappointment or even disgust. While they were on their own side now, Aziraphale was aware of the many things that he wasn’t--conventionally attractive, witty, brave or bold, magnetic or even all that interesting.   
“Do you ever think about dancing?”  
Aziraphale was shaken from his train of thought,  
“What?”  
“Dancing. You used to gavotte, didn’t you? Learned it in...oh that club you fancied.”  
“Hundred Guineas Club.”  
“Really?”  
“It was an excellent club. And such charming lads there. A little overly affectionate at times, but it was nice to have someone to drink with while you were asleep. And they did teach me to gavotte, so I considered it money well spent.”  
Crowley’s face went through a series of microexpressions that flickered rapidly through like a film reel just beginning and Aziraphale got an aching sort of feeling in his chest, a mixture of anxiety, hope, and dread. He could almost hear the demon say ‘you know what kind of club that was, don’t you angel?’ and himself responding, ‘Of course I do Crowley, I was a member.’ Maybe this was when Crowley would finally ask if he was even interested in the sorts of club activities that the Hundred Guineas Club was known for and that Aziraphale could say he was amenable with the right partner. Perhaps this was everything coming together and six thousand years of waiting finally ending.  
“I suppose it’s your money,” was all the demon said and Aziraphale nodded, keeping his face as blank as he could manage. After a pause, Crowley rolled his neck and yawned.  
“I’m bored, let’s play a game.”  
“What sort of a game?”   
Aziraphale was right to be cautious. Some of Crowley’s previous game inventions included Monopoly, a game that ends in all the players hating each other, Vehicular Chicken (horses are rubbish at it), which occasionally ends in death, a solid eighty percent of all known drinking games, Flappy Bird, which was tragically no longer available, and he’d taken credit for a complicated game called “Cauterizer” that Genghis Khan had invented as a method of torture--it involved fire and at least ten daggers. Demons were particularly fond of it and Crowley had been named Demon of the Month. Aziraphale, in contrast, had invented Pooh Sticks but had generously given the concept to A.A. Milne. He’d also had a hand in Candyland.   
“How about a sort of memory game?”  
“Crowley,” Aziraphale said gravely. “We’re drunk. And since disinebriation was decided to fall under the ‘frivolous miracles used sparsely’ category, we’re going to be that way at least another two hours.”  
“Makes it more fun then, doesn’t it?”  
“No, I don’t think so.”  
“Recognition then.”  
One angelic eyebrow was raised. Aziraphale was interested.  
“Go on.”  
“Well we’ve still got mimicry, haven’t we? Might as well put it to use. We’ll take turns imitating someone or something and the other one has to guess what it is.”  
“You’ll only choose things I’m not familiar with,” Aziraphale said. He was mostly correct, but Crowley clutched at his chest, wounded.  
“Aziraphale, the lack of trust is just hurtful.”  
Aziraphale took another sip of wine, leveling his gaze at his companion, who looked about as innocent as a jackrabbit in a carrot patch. After a moment, he huffed.  
“Fine, I’ll only choose things from before 1900.”  
“I think I can manage that.”  
“Excellent. Winner gets...well I suppose if you win, I’ll take you to lunch. And if I win...there’s a very nice bottle of cognac that’s been sitting in your storage room behind some books for the better part of a century.”  
“I’ve been saving that!”  
“Fine, we’ll drink it together.” As though they wouldn’t have anyhow.   
“All right then. Me first.”  
Crowley sat up and opened his mouth so wide that his jaw was unhinging. From his throat came a sound like clacking stone and rushing sand. It was not the sort of noise a human throat could make ordinarily, but Crowley wasn’t a human. He let the sound pour from his throat for a good thirty seconds, then stopped, letting his jaw snap back into place.  
“Fall of the Tower of Babel,” Aziraphale said and Crowley gave a sort of half-shrug.  
“Started you off with an easy one.”  
Aziraphale wrinkled his brow, opened his mouth, and the sound of a violin solo, slow and achingly sweet filled the sitting room. It only played for a few moments before Crowley called the answer over the sound of strings.  
“Brahms Violin Sonata Three.”  
“Which time?” Aziraphale asked.  
“What?”  
“Can you name who played it?”  
“Bastard,” Crowley said affectionately. “Is that how you’re playing this?”  
“I didn’t just say yours was a building collapsing.”  
“No, but I have to determine every violinist that played that piece before 1900 and narrow it down from there? Hardly seems sporting of you.”  
“Oh fine,” Aziraphale sighed. “You have a go, then.”  
Crowley’s next noise was the barely-audible bubbling hiss of fermentation in a wine vat. Aziraphale’s was a butterfly emerging from its cocoon.   
Crowley then did the sound of angel wings beating against the wind. He specifically chose the sound of Aziraphale’s wings, but the angel didn’t need to know that. As they took turns, the next sounds were:  
A nightingale song  
Teeth biting into a peach  
Bacon frying  
A blowtorch being lit  
A flower opening  
The sound of Aziraphale’s doorbell  
“Too easy,” Aziraphale said.  
“I didn’t do that one. Must be the delivery.” He uncurled himself and headed downstairs to get the door. Aziraphale watched him walk away, hips swaying in a way that looked anatomically impossible. The sway to his walk was even more pronounced when he’d been drinking and Aziraphale wondered if he was more inclined towards serpentlike behaviour when he was less in control of his faculties. He did tend to hiss when he was close to losing his temper and on one memorable occasion, had flashed his fangs at a large duck that kept stealing bread from a duckling.   
Crowley reappeared with a brown paper bag that smelled incredible and Aziraphale beamed at him as the demon set the bag down on the table. Tearing it open, Aziraphale opened the container with the crab rangoons in it and bit one in half, eyes closing in satisfied pleasure.  
“That was exactly what I wanted, thank you.”  
“Don’t thank me,” Crowley grumbled. “And don’t think this means we’ll stop playing.”  
“It’s your turn,” Aziraphale replied, popping the other half of the rangoon into his mouth.  
Crowley roared at him and Aziraphale swallowed his food.  
“Tiger’s roar, much too easy. Give me a moment.”  
Aziraphale’s next sound was low, dry, and faintly rasping--a sound soft enough that Crowley had to lean in to listen properly.  
“Snake,” he said carelessly.  
“Snake on what?”  
Crowley listened again to the rasp of scales against...something. It wasn’t crackly enough to be leaves, but scales over paper made a different sound than this, a little louder. He realized as he thought about it, that he sort of tuned out the sounds his scales made against different materials; he didn’t hunt in snake form and had no need to be concerned about if the noises he made would alert prey.  
“Leather,” he finally said. “A snake slithering over leather.”  
Aziraphale smiled and unwrapped an egg roll.   
“Linen, actually. My point.”  
Crowley frowned momentarily, then shrugged.  
“No matter. Try this one on.”  
The noise he made was high and squeaking, a long drawn-out sort of repetition of peeps.  
“Baby birds?” Aziraphale said, then shook his head. “No that’s not it.”  
“You already gave an answer, and no.”  
“What was it then?”  
“Turtle having an orgasm.”  
Aziraphale nearly choked on his mouthful of egg roll.  
“How in the world do you--never mind. I don’t want to know.”  
“You sssure?” Crowley hissed at him teasingly, and Aziraphale ate the rest on the egg roll in lieu of a response.   
“You mentioned dancing earlier,” Aziraphale said as he peered into the bag of takeaway and considered the boneless spare ribs. “And I do, sometimes.”  
“Do what?”  
“Think about dancing. I very much enjoyed the gavotte, you know. It was so elegant, and done well it was beautiful for dancers and witnesses alike. Pity, really. Nothing modern can be properly danced to.”  
“There’s plenty that can be danced to. It’s just not the gavotte.”  
“I don’t consider that gyration against one another they do in your clubs to be dancing.”  
“That’s narrow-minded,” Crowley said, and had a brief flash back to the 1970s, when he’d made several poor choices including but not limited to taking some LSD and attending a rave where he’d danced with no one but himself, though not for lack of offers, and in one evening, successfully tempted half of the room towards sin with his hips alone. “I suppose you think a waltz is too handsy though.”  
“Nothing wrong with a waltz,” Aziraphale said in a tone so doubtful that Crowley almost laughed. His angel was, as was said among humans, an odd duck.  
“I can’t have you besmirching the good name of the waltz.” Crowley was at the moment, convincing himself that this was the alcohol taking control as he waved a hand at the record player, flicked a finger at the coffee table so it moved out of the way, and offered the angel his hand as the introduction to a piece he’d never heard but Aziraphale probably had memorized began to play.  
“What?”  
“You can’t speak ill of a dance you’ve never done. Come now. I’ll lead.”  
The game forgotten, an angel and a demon who were now much less drunk than they were pretending to be waltzed in the sitting room for a few short minutes. Afterwards there was more consumption of Chinese food on the angel’s part and a bit more drawled goading of the aforementioned angel on the demon’s part, but for the most part, the evening would down.  
There was of course, the business of Crowley attempting to bend the light in the room to different wavelengths so it would change colors, but by then it was nearly morning and none of the neighbors noticed. Or at least none of them made public complaints.


	13. Heather Ki

**Heather Ki.**

London, United Kingdom

0 friends

3852 reviews

1 photos

This shop smells. Not that old book smell either, oh no, but like something is molding. I took my little Johnny in here to try and get him interested in something other than those damned video games and I walk into what smells like a whole cloud of toxic mold! My boy has a weak constitution as it is and if he comes down with anything I will be pressing charges, you mark my words.

____________________

Aziraphale only noticed that something was happening because Crowley sprung from the chair he was draped over and landed on his feet, grinning wickedly. The headphones on he was wearing slid down to around his neck.

“What is it?”

“Can you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

“Low-grade malice--human. Feels like...a woman. Maybe...mid-forties but definitely tells everyone she’s in her thirties. I invented that one, by the way--lying about your age.”

Aziraphale was staring at him but Crowley barely noticed.

“She’s got a lot to work with too,” he sounded positively gleeful. “If I was still working for Downstairs, the havok I could wreak with her. Low-grade of course, but widespread.”

He noticed Aziraphale then and paused.

“But I’m not...working for Downstairs anymore...so…”

“That’s incredible.”

There was a long list of things that Aziraphale could have said that Crowley wouldn’t bat an eye at, but ‘that’s incredible’ was not on the list. 

“What?”

“I can sense love...you can sense malicious intent?”

“Not malicious intent, exactly. More like the potential for mischief.”

“Of the Hellish variety?”

“I mean before last year, it was. Now it’s more for...fun.”

“Is there anything else you can do?”

Crowley’s tongue flicked out and back, serpentine, and Aziraphale resisted the urge to lick his own lips, which were suddenly dry. 

“Let me show you,” the Serpent of Eden grinned and Aziraphale felt a wave of...something. It was a cocktail of emotions--hope, excitement, lust, fear, anticipation, and another emotion he couldn’t identify. 

Through the window the angel and demon saw a woman dragging a tween behind her and she shoved open the door to the bookshop with a huff. Crowley was practically beaming at this point as the woman stepped in and wrinkled her nose.

“It smells like mold.”

Taking a deep whiff through her nose, the woman coughed conspicuously, looking around for someone to complain at. Crowley grabbed Aziraphale’s arm and there was a shift---to the human eye they were no longer visible. 

“I should probably go help her,” Aziraphale whispered halfheartedly. “She is a customer. And getting young people to read is a passion of mine.”

“Not this young man, or at least not with her here.”

Aziraphale sniffed the air, trying not to fixate on the feeling of Crowley’s long, slender fingers wrapped around his forearm through the layers of jacket and shirt he wore. 

“I don’t smell mold of any kind. And anyhow, I keep everything harmful out of the air in here so the books aren’t damaged.”

“Hush,” Crowley said absently as they watched the woman drag the tween back out the door. As she did, Crowley let go of Aziraphale’s arm and they reappeared on the visible light spectrum. 

“What am I hushing for, precisely?”

“Three, two, one. She’s crossing the street and...now.”

There was a shriek of horror from the woman, now halfway across the road but with her hair splattered with black and white bird droppings. The tween shrieked as well, though his was of delight. 

“That’s what else you can do?” Aziraphale sounded mildly amused. “Make birds defecate on command?”

“Not just birds.”

“Charming.”

Crowley did have other powers, of course, but he was enjoying the angel’s slightly strained look and he continued along the line of thought.

“Birds, fish, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, all sorts of creatures.”

“Never would have guessed it.”

“Well it’s not exactly the sort of thing you show off at parties. Well, demon parties yeah, they’re not bothered by a bit of filth.”

Aziraphale was almost twitching, trying to stay polite.

“Do demons have a lot of parties?”

“Here and there. Music’s always decent but the company leaves a lot to be desired. And do not eat the food.”

Aziraphale shuddered and Crowley patted him absently.

“Why don’t you come along with me, angel? I can stir up some trouble and you can watch and probably thwart me.”

“Only if you’re doing something that requires a thwart.”

They closed the shop and Crowley offered his arm in a way that was somehow both over-dramatic and a little shy. Aziraphale tucked his hand in the crook of Crowley’s arm and they walked along together.

“See that man there?” Crowley asked, nodding at a balding fellow sitting with a young woman perhaps half his age. “He’s currently making a lot of promises to leave his wife. He’s got no plans to actually do it but if you look there,” he pointed at another woman standing in line to get a coffee, “That is a friend of his wife’s and I’ve just tempted her into being a little nosy. Nosy enough to snap a few pictures on her phone, even.”

The woman was indeed surreptitiously taking pictures, her jaw dropping as the balding man kissed the young woman and then held her face in his palms, murmuring something for her ears only. She blushed and Crowley nodded at an elderly man who was using a cane to make his way down the street. Behind him, some boys barely out of secondary school bunched together and eyed him up, stalking the gentleman like a pack of dogs. Crowley made a little gesture and the old man slowed a little and stopped to rest on a bench, laying his cane over his knees. When the group got to him, the old man smiled up at them and when one pulled out what looked like a knife, the old man batted it away with a flick of his cane. 

“Trained in three different kinds of self-defense,” Crowley muttered. “They won’t know what hit them.”

He was correct, and Aziraphale only felt a little bad about not preventing an elderly man beat up a group of teenagers with his cane. Not bad enough to intervene, of course, the lads were planning to do the same to the man if they’d gotten him into an alleyway. After a few yelps drew the attention of other humans on the street, Aziraphale made a little gesture and the barista at the coffeeshop abandoned his post and went across the street to break up the disagreement.

“Why don’t I get you a nice cuppa?”

“I was defending myself,” the old man replied.

“I think you’ve got them sorted, Gramps. Come on, let me make you a tea and when I get off in half an hour we can go visit Gran.”

“His grandson,” Aziraphale said, sounding pleased. “He’s the only one who hasn’t stopped speaking to the boy after he explained that he was a boy and not a girl, as they had all previously assumed. Parents refuse to take his calls, but his grandfather visits him twice a week at work so they can take the tube to the cemetery together and visit his grandmother’s grave.”

“How?”

“You have your little miracles, I have mine.”

“Temptations,” Crowley corrected. “I don’t do miracles. Or if I do, they’re demonic ones.”

“Of course, my dear. I don’t suppose you’d like to sit and cause mayhem from here?”

“Not here, no. There’s another coffee shop a few blocks down with a balcony if you don’t mind walking?”

“Well if it has a balcony,” Aziraphale said, entirely sincerely. “Walking another few blocks would be worth it for the view.”

They strolled along, Aziraphale’s hand still tucked in Crowley’s elbow, smiling serenely. He was doing some blessings, Crowley could feel it--the woman trying to soothe her crying infant was blessed with a sleeping baby. The person trying to start their car was blessed with the rumbling purr of the motor instead of the squeaking cough it had been making the times before. A bird with its head caught in a wrapper of some kind shook it loose with a triumphant cheep. It sort of tickled, feeling Aziraphale bless people and things as his other hand was curled around Crowley’s arm. He didn’t want the angel to let go, though, so he didn’t say anything. And if he loosened a few bricks in a walkway and tempted someone into keying their ex’s car, he was only doing his duty to balance the scales. 

The best table on the balcony, right near the edge with a view of streets and shops and the Thames in the distance, was open. Whether the miracle was celestial or demonic could have been debated, but that would have required the two beings to actually talk about it, which they didn’t care to. Aziraphale stood in line--his tea order was very very specific--while Crowley climbed the stairs to the balcony and lounged on one of the chairs. How he managed to lounge on iron outdoor furniture was a mystery; the little cushion to make the seat semi-comfortable was hardly enough to change it into the armchair that Crowley was treating it as, but his gift was the ability to lounge anywhere and still look comfortable.

Aziraphale came back carrying a tray, which didn’t surprise Crowley in the least. This particular coffee shop had a little bakery that he knew Aziraphale would be enamoured with. The tray bore a tea service, a pot of espresso and a tiny cup, and enough baked goods to keep them fed all afternoon. As they had a tendency to settle in, it was a distinct possibility that this would become their afternoon--hot drinks, pastries, and blessing and tempting from afar. That was just fine with both of them--Aziraphale had something to munch on, the pots would refill as needed, and the company was ideal. 


	14. Jo W.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember when the shop burned down? Well no one is supposed to. But someone does...sort of.

**Jo. W.**

London, United Kingdom

32 friends

410 reviews

61 photos

Hey, does anyone want to talk about the fact that this place burned down last month? As in, completely up in flames, I saw it happen, nothing but a smoking husk afterwards? Does no one else remember this??

_____________________________

Humans, as a rule, are not perceptive creatures. Most of them, save the very young and the very old, have a selective sort of attention when it came to things of a less-than-earthly nature. There were a few humans with so-called psychic abilities who were born without that filter or had it removed by trauma, near-death experience, or an encounter with something unearthly, but for the most part, humans were oblivious to the workings of Heaven and Hell on their planet. 

Those without that filter still didn’t understand most of what they saw and their little human minds tried to sort it into an appropriate box, and often got confused or upset by it. Which is why Aziraphale looked up as Crowley said, 

“Angel, they’re back.”

“Who is, my--oh.” 

A person in their early thirties stood on the sidewalk and stared at the bookshop with a mixture of bewilderment, frustration, and what seemed to be mild pain.

It was nearly a year to the day since the bookshop had burned down, Armageddon’t had happened (or didn’t happen, depending on how you looked at it), and though the human in question stopped less often than usual, they still ended up standing in front of the bookshop about once a month with this exact expression on their face. The human, Jo, lived somewhere in SoHo and had witnessed the bookshop burning down. When Adam hit the restart button on the universe, most humans’ minds happily skimmed over the events that made no sense and moved on. Jo hadn’t. In the first month after the reboot, they’d stopped in front of the bookshop at least once a day, puzzled and frozen in place as their mind tried to balance the memory of the shop burning down and the shop standing before them, unburnt without even a trace of ash or a whiff of smoke. They’d taken turns miracling Jo back into working condition--a sort of ‘snooze button’ on their perception that let them skip over the disconnect and get on their way. Admittedly, Jo did stop by to stare less, but there they were again, just staring.

“Do you suppose we should ask them in for tea?”

“What for? We can miracle them from here.”

“Well if they’re still stopping, it’s possible that all the miracles, celestial or demonic haven’t had the lasting effect we’d hoped. Perhaps it’s time to try something different.”

“Like asking them to tea?”

“I could put something in the tea and perform a little surgery on their memory--snip it right out.”

“What, just like that?”

“It’s clearly causing them some distress, Crowley. It wouldn’t hurt them a bit and I imagine all the cognitive dissonance of having two vivid but conflicting memories is wearing on their brain. You know how delicate humans can be.”

“I just don’t like the thought of opening someone up like that.”

Crowley shuddered and Aziraphale set down the clipboard he was making notes on to walk over to his demon, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“It’s not as messy as all that. I’ve done it a couple of times before. Cassandra, in Greece, for one. She saw me resurrecting a child that had drowned and I couldn’t have her telling everyone about it.”

“No one would have believed her,” Crowley reminded him. “It was her curse.”

“I wasn’t supposed to draw attention to myself, and even if no one believed her, they still might have sought me out to gawk or ask questions about what  _ really  _ happened. I wasn’t taking that chance.”

“Still.”

Aziraphale patted his shoulder again.

“I didn’t like it, but it needed to be done. I made sure she wasn’t uncomfortable in any way, and when she woke up, she’d had a lovely dream.”

“About whatever she liked best?” Crowley asked drolly and the angel nodded, completely ignoring his tone.

“Precisely that.”

“Fine, I’ll get them in here.”

Crowley strolled out of the bookshop and Aziraphale watched him slouch beside Jo and set a casual hand on their shoulder. Aziraphale felt a sharp and unexpected stab of jealousy and he quashed it down, horrified with himself. Crowley touched him sometimes as well--a tug on the sleeve, brushing fingers when passing a glass or a book, an occasional guiding hand on the small of his back to lead him in a particular direction. On the bus home from Tadfield, they’d even held hands. He had no reason whatsoever to be jealous and he was still giving himself a stern scolding when the bell on the bookshop door rang and both the demon and Jo came inside. 

“We see you all the time,” Crowley said in what Aziraphale thought of as his ‘tempting voice’. It was a low purr, almost seductive, and hearing it was like the feeling of someone you liked very much running a warm hand down your spine. It made every part of you relax and lean in and want to say ‘yes’ to whatever you were asked. 

“We thought it was high time you came in and had some tea with us. We are neighbors, after all.”

Jo nodded somewhat blearily and Crowley made a series of complicated hand signals at Aziraphale. The angel stared, puzzled.

“Mr. Fell was just going to put the kettle on, weren’t you Mr. Fell?” Crowley asked pointedly. 

“Right, yes of course. Jo, dear, how do you take your tea?”

“No milk, just a sugar.” They sounded a little hypnotized and Crowley gave the human a rough sort of pat on the shoulder, like he imagined Aziraphale would if he wasn’t making tea. 

“There’s a good kid.”

“M’ not a kid,” Jo said and Crowley gave them another rough sort of pat, wishing the angel would miracle the kettle to boiling instead of letting it do it on its own time. Admittedly, yes, it would be a frivolous miracle, but the demon was reminded vividly that his interactions with humanity were strictly in the tempting or fun-having categories and not at all in that of small talk or comfort or any of the little details that Aziraphale was good at and he...well...wasn’t. He wasn’t much for gentleness or tenderness or niceties of any sort that weren’t a prelude to mischief. Still, he lead Jo back through the shelves to a little nook that held a little table and three chairs and gestured at it before sliding into a chair and arranging himself into a languid-looking slouch. Jo didn’t move so Crowley pointed to a chair.

“Sit down then.”

Jo sat and Crowley rested his elbow on the table, peering at the human through his sunglasses. 

“So, you were standing out front a while…”

Jo nodded and Crowley kept his face in a reasonably pleasant expression--well pleasant for him anyway. Apparently this was going to be one of those times he couldn’t just sit and make occasional suggestions while the human shared their life story--no of course not. Earth forbid anything be easy.

“Why stand out there? You could have come in.”

Jo’s face took on a confused expression--forehead wrinkled, a concerned little frown on their lips.

“This isn’t supposed to be here.”

“Oh?” Crowley prompted. When Jo didn’t respond, he added, “What makes you say that?”

“It burned down…last month. I saw it burn, hot and bright and...you were there. You ran in and out and the firemen were cross about it.”

“Oh public servants are always cross with him,” Aziraphale said as he set down a tea tray that had little biscuits and sandwiches. The teapot was kept warm by a knitted maroon cozy and the cups sat on matching saucers with whimsical little animals painted on them.

Crowley stuck his tongue out at Aziraphale while Jo was distracted, letting it be long and forked like his snake form’s would be. He could taste the air, even if that wasn’t his original intention, could tell what kind of tea Aziraphale had made--Darjeeling--and the scent that was Aziraphale, like old books and wool blankets and a warm evening inside while the rain came down outside the window. Pulling his tongue back into his mouth, Crowley had the idle thought that he could probably taste Aziraphale’s skin from where he was sitting. It wouldn’t be a miracle, celestial beings had a good deal of control and autonomy over their corporeal forms. It would, however, be a bad idea, at least right now. He filed away the thought for later, when he could examine it fully.

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows disapprovingly at the demon and poured the tea, handing the cups to Jo, then Crowley before pouring himself a cup. He took a sip and sighed, smiling, before he settled down into a chair, watching Jo as they took a sip from their cup.

“Enough sugar?” the angel asked politely and Jo nodded.

“S’nice, thanks.”

“Absolutely no trouble, my dear. Would you like a biscuit?”

Jo shrugged and reached for one, taking a bite of the corner.

“They’re lemon,” he said helpfully and Jo nodded.

“Thanks.”

They sipped their tea in silence, or rather, Aziraphale and Jo did while Crowley stared at his cup and wondered how cross Aziraphale would be if he miracled it into whiskey. After a few minutes, Jo seemed to have trouble keeping their eyes open.

“Have you told anyone about the fire?” Crowley asked, realizing that the human was only a minute away from being completely unconscious and thus unable to answer questions.

“Posted about it online...yelp.”

Aziraphale looked worried.

“Online? Oh dear, they do call it the information superhighway, do they not?”

Crowley laughed.

“Angel, no one believes the things they read on the internet.”

“Why not? It is the opportunity for global knowledge sharing.”

“Yeah….” Crowley said, “Mostly they use it for buying things or watching porn.”

“What?” The angel looked scandalized.

Jo’s head lolled forward and Aziraphale glanced briefly at them.

“Oh good, that’s taken effect. I suppose we’d better get to this then. However, I do have some questions about how humans are using the online world once we’ve finished up here.”

Crowley didn’t answer except to start humming a tune that fans of a certain puppet-themed musical would recognize as “The Internet is for Porn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a trip two weeks back and have been on hiatus, but fear not, I'm back now and you should be getting chapters roughly once a week.


	15. Tiggi N.

**Tiggi N.**

London, United Kingdom

32 friends

33 reviews

24 photos

Has anyone read this guy’s opening hours? I included a photo above: “I open the shop on most days about 9:30AM perhaps 10:AM. While occasionally I have opened the shop as early as 8, I have been known not to open until 1.” Absolutely insane. This guy’s a madman and I love him. If anyone actually manages to get into this place please let me know because I need to shake Fell’s hand.

_____________

There are many benefits to owning one’s own business, but the best one, in most opinions, is that there is no boss telling you how and when to do things. For Aziraphale, a boss would have told him things like ‘sell books’ or ‘open at a consistent time’ or ‘don’t allow a large snake to lounge around scaring customers’ or ‘own a cash register’. Thankfully, he did not have a boss. Well, not one that cared about the bookshop. His boss was a little more...big picture. 

This meant that he could open whenever he felt like it and close if he wanted to go to lunch or tea or if he just didn’t feel like dealing with humans on a particular afternoon. This particular morning, Aziraphale was feeling a bit lonely and opened his shop before 9 o’clock in the morning in the hopes that someone would wander in. He didn’t want them to purchase anything, of course, but he wanted the presence of someone else. As an angel he wasn’t usually prone to bouts of melancholy, but such things happened to most beings from time to time, except, for some reason, those big koi fish that people kept in garden ponds or at Chinese restaurants in big tanks. It wasn’t that they were too stupid to be melancholy, there were a good number of animals less intelligent than a koi, it was just something about the way they were made, they didn’t have the propencity for it. 

SoHo wasn’t usually particularly busy around 9AM, but Aziraphale did attract an elderly lady who was a very lost with no idea where she was going, and, worryingly, no idea where she had come from either. She seemed happy to sit in the bookshop while Aziraphale frantically phoned about trying to determine where she had come from and where she was trying to get to. Alzheimer’s was something he could technically fix, but that would have taken a much larger miracle than he wanted to use this early in the month and furthermore, he and Crowley had talked quite seriously about the interference business in recent weeks and they’d agreed to not meddle much, or at least, that was the short version. The long version of their agreement was something like ‘don’t meddle in human affairs except as much as that which can be reasonably thought to be good luck’ with a bunch of exceptions and loopholes for things like getting a decent table at the Ritz and making life inconvenient for those who hollered at women out of car windows and of course the occasional disinebriation, heavy emphasis on occasional. 

The woman was called Mildred and she had hair so white and fine that it brought cashmere goat’s fur to mind, though hers had a bit more of a curl and smelled like violets and powder. Aziraphale was able to rummage through her purse when she asked to use the WC and find a card with her identifying information on it and a number to call if she was found somewhere. When he called, a grateful young woman answered and thanked him profusely before promising to come over immediately. Due to traffic, ‘immediately’ took more like forty-five minutes, but Mildred and Aziraphale had tea and he listened intently while she talked about her husband, now dead, and her prize flowers--violets and roses--and how the tea reminded her of the first cup she’d had after rationing had stopped after the War. It was so rare that Aziraphale met someone who remembered the War, that he cheated a bit and gave Mildred a few minutes of clarity. It wasn’t a cure, mind, just a lucid spell, but he got to listen as she told him what she remembered as a little girl--ration cards, hiding from bombs in the cellar, the emotional confusion that was waiting to hear from her older brother, half-hoping he’d been injured so he could come home, half praying that he was all right and would be the same as he was when he’d left. The lucid spell faded a little and Mildred began telling him about the proper way to care for a bed of violets with long pauses where she seemed to forget what she’d been saying. Aziraphale merely refilled her cup of tea and prompted her when she seemed to get stuck. He also gave her a little peace, a break from the confusion she felt so often now that her mind was no longer working the way it did when she was a younger person. He didn’t think anyone would mind, least of all the Almighty. She had always encouraged small acts of love towards those who needed them. 

Mildred’s daughter Sophia had a toddler balanced on one hip and she almost burst into tears when she saw her mother.

“Mum, I’ve been so worried!”

Mildred looked at her for a moment, and Aziraphale could see the moment that she recognized her daughter and grandchild.

“No need to worry, Sophie, I can look after myself.”

“Just...don’t wander off like that, Mum. I had to check Sam’s nappy and when I looked up you were nowhere to be found.”

“With violets, having a lot of compost in the soil is very important,” Mildred said to Aziraphale, and the angel nodded.

“It was lovely to have you for tea, Mildred. Perhaps you’ll come back and see me another time?”

Sophia nodded distractedly as she led her mother back out to the street, hailing a cab as she did. And then the shop was quiet again.

Around ten there was another customer, one of his regulars, who came to sit and read in one of the chairs, paging through an annotated copy of Middlemarch and occasionally tugging on his greying moustache. It helped, somewhat, having a human there, but after an hour Aziraphale realized that it wasn’t human company he wanted. No, what he wanted specifically was Crowley’s company. 

It was before eleven so the chance of Crowley being awake was roughly fifty percent--he’d always been a big fan of sloth, but since the Apocaloops, he’d been really taking advantage of not having to harken to Hell’s commands and taken to sleeping until noon regularly. As someone who had only slept a handful of times in six thousand years, Aziraphale didn’t really understand the appeal, but he could hardly fault a demon for practicing the seven deadly sins. 

At one, Aziraphale closed for lunch and made his way to a little Turkish restaurant. His Turkish was abominable, but the wait staff knew him and were very forgiving of his accent and the fact that he had accidentally called the new waitress a prick when trying to ask for cucumber. The fact that he tipped well didn’t hurt, admittedly, but his presence in the restaurant made everyone feel a little lighter, a little happier. 

The waitress gave him a little plate of dolmas, sweet peppers this time, and a menu as well as a glass of still water and a pot of tea. 

“Teşekkür ederim,” Aziraphale said, and the waitress smiled at him. His accent was still atrocious but his pronunciation was better than last time. He ordered himself a lunch special and of course, baklava for dessert, topped with finely chopped pistachios. He was finishing the last few bites of his dessert when the phone in the pocket of his vest began to vibrate. Aziraphale abhorred the sound of a ringing phone in a restaurant and once Crowley had half-forced him to get a mobile phone, he was careful to be courteous with it. He placed a plastic card on the table and popped the remaining morsel in his mouth as he stepped outside to take the call.

“Hello?”

“Angel, it’s nearly two-thirty and you’ve got the shop closed. Are you ill? Can you get ill?”

“I’m not sure I can get ill in a way I can’t simply miracle away, and no, I’m not. I’m having lunch at the Turkish restaurant in SoHo that I so enjoy.”

From the other end of the line there was an exasperated sigh.

“The one where you insist on trying to speak Turkish to the wait staff?”

“It’s polite,” Aziraphale argued. “I think I’m getting much better.”

Crowley let the pause draw out, making it clear by his silence what he thought of Aziraphale’s claim of improvement. 

“Stop that,” the angel said and there was a puff of feedback, air hitting the microphone as Crowley laughed quietly. 

“Have you just started lunch?”

“Just finished. Paying my bill now. I’ll be back at the bookshop in two shakes, you can go ahead and let yourself in.”

“All right. I found something to keep myself busy this afternoon while you’re not selling books.”

“That’s good,” Aziraphale said absently. “Idle hands are the devil’s plaything, or so they say.”

“I think they were talking about masturbation,” Crowley said blandly and Aziraphale stiffened and blushed.

“Crowley really! Saying such things in public!”

“I’m in the bookshop now, no one around to hear.”

“Still,” Aziraphale said, grasping for a point. “It’s vulgar!”

“Not if you’re doing it right, it’s not,” Crowley drawled and Aziraphale flushed even more pink.

“Really,” he huffed and promptly hung up.

Aziraphale had only tried self-pleasure once and had found it mildly enjoyable, but mostly guilt-inducing. He was genderless by default and rarely manifested genitals, though he did enjoy the pleasant wanting ache that settled low in his belly when he read the occasional romance novel or had a quiet little fantasy that mirrored the plot of one of the Georgette Heyer novels he’d memorized with himself as the blushing heroine whose love tamed the feral heart of the rakish hero, played by Crowley. It was indulgent, he knew, but it was such a lovely daydream that he revisited it from time to time, and Crowley didn’t need to know anything about it. If anything, he’d probably be embarrassed by Aziraphale’s overwhelming affection, so it was better, the angel reasoned, to keep it to himself.

He went back into the restaurant and signed his bill neatly, writing in a heavy tip, and walked back to the bookshop. The ‘closed’ sign still hung on the door, but it was unlocked and Aziraphale stepped inside. He wasn’t quite ready to reopen, he wanted to visit a bit with Crowley, and since he didn’t have a boss hovering over him, he didn’t have to flip the sign at all if he didn’t want to. 

In the little nook in the back where the radiator and Crowley’s favorite chair, the demon was busily plugging things in and adjusting wires on an old cathode-ray tube television that sat on a cabinet Aziraphale was fairly certain that he hadn’t owned when he left for lunch. 

“You’re installing a television in my bookshop?” Aziraphale was doing his best not to sound scandalized, but he must have failed because Crowley flashed a rakish grin and continued his tinkering.

“If it makes you feel better, it’s definitely rare to find one of these in good condition.”

It did not, but Aziraphale sat down in Crowley’s favorite chair and proceeded to ask questions about what Crowley was doing and why he was plugging this thing into that one and where he’d found all his equipment. The demon answered about half the questions and ignored the other half, which was honestly more than Aziraphale was expecting. Once he sat back on his heels to admire his work, he noticed that the angel was in his chair.

“I was thinking I could watch movies back here instead of napping all the time. Loads of movies and telly to catch up on.”

“Plenty of books as well,” Aziraphale said primly, but Crowley didn’t bother responding, choosing instead to continue his train of thought as though he hadn’t heard the angel at all. 

“Now that there’s streaming and downloads and things, I can watch plays from Digital Theatre--they’ve redone Shakespeare a good number of times, and I’ve already gotten full series’ downloaded so I can watch whatever I like.”

“You paid for them?” Aziraphale sounded hopeful and Crowley snorted. 

“Technically, paying for them is more an act of evil than not doing so, but I didn’t feel like entering my credit card information a half dozen times, so no. I did pay for the Digital Theatre subscription though. They’ve got Hamlet on right now, pity. I prefer the funny ones.”

“Hamlet?” Aziraphale perked up. “Well I can’t object to watching one of Shakespeare’s greatest successes.”

“Shut up,” Crowley said lazily. “And if you’re staying here, you’ll need to get your own chair, this one’s mine.”

“I can move the sofa in if you don’t mind carrying the other end.”

He did mind, actually, but he did it anyway because it was Aziraphale and there was very little that he wouldn’t do for his angel.

“I’ve got grapes in the fridge,” he said once they’d set down the couch. It shouldn’t have fit in the nook, but Aziraphale expected it to and so it fit perfectly. 

“Trying to relive the entire experience exactly?” Crowley asked, but the angel had already vanished towards the direction of the kitchen. Crowley wondered if he could fix another coin toss and share the couch with Aziraphale, maybe get him to feed Crowley a few grapes as well. 

He didn’t even need the coin toss. Aziraphale settled on the couch and Crowley fiddled with the CRT and all the other equipment until the play began onscreen. He was already sitting on the edge of the sofa to point the remote so it wasn’t much effort to lean back into Aziraphale’s arm. And once he’d stolen the first grape, the angel kept offering, and it would be rude to say no. By the second act, Crowley would just open his mouth and let Aziraphale feed him. 

Hamlet wasn’t that bad, actually. Definitely a downer and not one of Shakespeare’s best, but Crowley supposed there were worse plays. 


	16. Mackenzie J.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's a bit sulky and moody, but I promise that the next one will be much happier and have some excellent ineffable snogging.

**Mackenzie J.**

City Centre, Manchester, United Kingdom

807 friends

2592 reviews

13218 photos

I told my girlfriend this shop’s got a snake named Anthony and she didn’t believe me. Going back for proof next week.

Update: got the snake selfie!!!!!!!!

________________________

Jealousy was not an emotion that angels encouraged. It was considered an emotion that was decidedly un-angelic and was seriously frowned upon. Aziraphale felt particularly guilty, then, for the low burn of jealousy in his belly as a plump university student with a shock of blonde curls stroked Crowley’s scaled head. The serpent was half-curled around the girl’s arm, his eyes half-closed in elapine pleasure. It was indecent, the amount of jealousy he felt. Crowley did not belong to him and he certainly had no say over whether or not someone was allowed to stroke him in his snake form. Crowley was vain, after all, and hardly likely to turn down admiration from someone who wasn’t Aziraphale.

“What a devilishly handsome boy you are,” the student cooed--what was her name? Mackenzie. Yes, that was it, she’d been in before. 

“Such menacing colors, quite the fearsome predator aren’t you Anthony?”

Yes, Aziraphale had told her the snake’s name was Anthony. He wasn’t about to make up some name on the spot, though now he rather wished he had, and that it had been a silly sort of name so that Crowley wouldn’t be basking in the praises Mackenzie was currently pouring over him. It would be gratifying to hear her calling him “Muffin” or “Slinkster” or some other ridiculous thing. Crowley didn’t do this when Aziraphale praised him. If he was in his humanoid form, he’d roll his eyes and tell Aziraphale to shut up or deny whatever he was told. If he was in his serpent form, he’d hiss or slither off elsewhere. He only seemed to accept praise from others, which made the angel not only jealous but a bit angry as well. 

Aziraphale wanted to tell Crowley that his was beautiful, that he loved his golden eyes and that ridiculous swaying thing his hips did when he walked. He wanted to tell Crowley that he was brave and clever and funny and made Aziraphale feel that anything was possible. He could write sonnets about the sleek black and red of his scaled form and sestinas about his marvelously red hair. That the best part of post-apocaloops life was that he could spend so much time with him. That he loved him, had loved him since 1941 when he’d hopped his way into a church to save Aziraphale’s life and then handed him a carpetbag of prophecy books as though it were nothing, as though the small kindness hadn’t hit Aziraphale with the shocking realization that Crowley had been there all along and that he was an angel who had just fallen in love with a demon. That he still thought about that bus ride home from Tadfield when they sat, hands intertwined. That when Crowley had toasted, ‘to the world’, Aziraphale had wanted to kiss him, long and slow and gentle so the demon could absorb every ounce of the love he had. But the only reaction other than flat denial or being ignored was at the former abbey of the Chattering Order of St. Beryl, where the simple word ‘nice’ had gotten him pinned to the wall, one of Crowley’s arms at his throat, slender hips holding him in place. The memory sent a rush of heat to his belly. He wasn’t making an Effort, so it wasn’t noticeable, but the angel shook his head and willed it away, or at least away from his immediate attention. 

“My girlfriend will never believe this,” Mackenzie said delightedly as she gently set Crowley back atop the sunny shelf he’d been perched on. “She loves snakes--she’s actually studying biology with the intent to be a herpetologist.”

“That’s nice,” Aziraphale said, was surprised to find that he didn’t actually think it was that nice at all. Another university student would come and fawn over Crowley and Aziraphale would be brushed aside as the demon accepted affection from humans rather than him, his best friend, maybe only friend, of six thousand years. 

“I’m going to miss the bus,” Mackenzie said, looking at her phone. “If I run I can still beat it, the eleven-fifteen usually comes a bit closer to eleven-twenty. Cheerio, Mr. Fell! Bye Anthony!”

Crowley hissed sleepily and coiled himself into a lopsided loop, resuming his basking in the sun. He slept through Aziraphale’s rather aggressive dusting of the shop, three cups of tea, none of which really satisfied the angel’s need for something in particular that he couldn’t quite identify, and also through the re-reading of Georgette Heyer’s ‘These Old Shades’, which he found frustrating rather than soothing. When he woke from his nap, the sun had moved behind the other buildings and Aziraphale was nowhere to be found. Crowley blinked and scanned the room, swaying gently from side to side. When the first look caught nothing, he looked again using the heat-sensitive vision favored by some serpents and found a warm blob faded behind several walls--the angel was in his office. He slithered out of sight of the front windows before he shifted back into his more human-looking form and sauntered to the office, peering around the doorway at an angel who appeared to be asleep.

“Zira?” Crowley blurted, surprised. His angel didn’t sleep. Well, technically he did, but it was a once-every-few-thousand-years sort of deal. And he’d already slept the night they averted the end of the world, so this was unprecedented. They’d established that Aziraphale didn’t get ill, just as Crowley didn’t, but this was so out of the ordinary that the demon was worried. When Aziraphale didn’t respond to his call, Crowley gathered up all his courage. He could put a hand on the angel’s shoulder and gently wake him, there wouldn’t be anything untoward about that. However, self-saboteur that he was, Crowley instead jabbed him rather roughly with two fingers into the muscle of his bicep.

Aziraphale jerked awake and blinked sleepily at Crowley.

“What’s happened? Oh, Crowley. How was your nap?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Crowley retorted. He was supposed to be playing it cool. Aziraphale was so fussy that the last thing he wanted was to rile him up. No, he had to keep to what Aziraphale expected. If they both played their roles the way they always did, Aziraphale would stay in the bookshop and things would stay precisely as they were. He would see his angel close to daily and would have the comfort of knowing that Aziraphale was near and safe. 

“Finally embracing the hedonism and enjoying a bit of sloth as well as your usual gluttony?”

Aziraphale looked hurt rather than bemused and Crowley bit his tongue in a sort of self-flagellation--bad demon, don’t upset the angel.

“I was tired is all,” he said and Crowley switched tacks.

“Well if you’re really tired, napping at your desk isn’t going to do any good. You’ll just get a crick in your neck and probably your back. Desks aren’t particularly comfortable sleeping places.

“Not like bookshelves,” Aziraphale said dryly and Crowley shrugged. 

“Everything’s a comfortable napping location when you’re a snake. Being so flexible means there’s always a comfortable position to be found. But never mind that. What sort of tired are you?”

“What do you mean what sort of tired? I’m tired, Crowley.”

“There are about a dozen different kinds of tired, Angel. There’s a physical tiredness, like when you’ve done a great deal of exercise--dancing all night, running from a mob, running with a mob, moving all your furniture into a new place. There’s also mental tiredness, like when you’ve had to work out a bunch of difficult problems, like designing a long-term project for gathering souls for Satan and you do it all in one night because you’ve got to tell Hell about it in the morning. There’s the emotional kind of tired, where you’ve just attended a lot of funerals or watched the last of something fall or die or be destroyed. I was like that after Golgotha.”

He was quiet for a moment, remembering the man on the cross asking God to forgive the people who put him there. He’d been she then, but it hardly mattered in the context of what he was trying to explain. 

“There’s a sort of worn-down tired, like when you’ve been doing the same thing for a thousand years and it’s been just wearing on you, like water on stone.”

“That’s the one,” Aziraphale interrupted. “Like a constant stream of water is wearing me away. An excellent metaphor, my dear.” He beamed at Crowley, albeit a little dimmer than the demon was used to. 

“You need some opulence.”

“What?”

“Give yourself everything you want for a few days. Eat whatever you fancy, marathon some telly, take a bath with those scented fizzes you like so much, gp get a haircut and have your barber do a neck massage. Rechange your batteries as it were.”

“I hardly think that would be appropriate.”

“It works,” Crowley shrugged. “I prefer a massage and then a week-long nap, but you’re not really one for sleeping more than eight or ten hours at your longest, so I doubt that’d work for you.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“A bath then, with those smelly things you like, and maybe a nice bottle of wine and something to eat? I can pick up whatever you like.”

Crowley could be kind to him, of course, bur Heaven-forbid that Crowley allow Aziraphale to be kind back. No, that would be beyond the pale, which was the whole problem in the first place. Perhaps it would be easier just to do as he was told. He’d read one of his favorites--not a romance, that would only make him more melancholy--and have a bath and some wine and then lie in bed with something to drink and read or nap or listen to a record. 

“Scones with blackberry jam and clotted cream would be lovely,” Aziraphale said. “Not a good pairing for wine, though. Tea, I think. I’ll put the kettle on.”

“You go on upstairs and get your bath running,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale scowled.

“I am quite capable of closing the shop and putting the kettle on, Crowley.”

It came out sharper than he meant it to and the demon looked a little taken aback. 

“I’m sorry, I’m being awfully cross.”

“It’s fine,” Crowley said quickly. “Why don’t you lock up and I’ll get the tea started. Once everything’s all ready I can let you have your night in.”

What Aziraphale wanted was for Crowley to stay, to maybe sit beside the tub while he soaked, or, much more appealingly but also more dangerously, soak in the tub with him, slender limbs cradled by the water and his head resting on Aziraphale’s chest.

“All right,” he agreed quietly, and padded out into the bookshop. There hadn’t been anyone in hours and anyhow, it was nearly seven o’clock. If anyone wanted books later than that this evening, they’d have to go elsewhere. 

About half an hour later, Crowley set a tray beside the dusty bed in Aziraphale’s bedroom--he mostly used it for book storage, but Crowley occasionally napped on it and thus it had been fitted with a much more comfortable mattress, more pillows than were truly necessary, and a thick knitted blanket tossed over a whilte duvet. It was barely a miracle to clear away the dust and make the bed a little warm. It was nearly autumn and the nights were already a bit cool for sleeping without a blanket or two. He didn’t have to use a miracle on the tray of tea and scones, he just glared at it menacingly until it resolved to stay warm. He tapped on the bathroom door.

“Aziraphale? I left your tea things on the bedside table.”

“Thank you, dear boy.”

The scent of lavender and roses drifted under the crack below the door and Crowley tried very hard not to imagine his angel laid out in the enormous claw-foot tub, bubbles covering the water so only his curly head stuck out. The bubbles he imagined for his own sake, really. He hadn’t seen Aziraphale’s calves since Rome and the sight of all of him, legs, belly, chest, the soft smooth skin of his groin, (Aziraphale didn’t, hadn’t made an Effort, Crowley was sure of it, and if he had, imagining it might be too erotic for him to handle outside of the privacy of his own bedroom), well the sight of all of him might make him discorporate on the spot. No, that wouldn’t do at all. Hell wasn’t likely to re-issue him a body.

Crowley realized that he’d been standing outside the bathroom door for perhaps a full minute without saying anything and cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Right, erm. I’ll see you later then.”

“Yes, that would be lovely.”

Crowley clattered down the stairs and out the back door and into the Bentley where he sat as Queen played ‘Somebody to Love’.

“Shut up,” he growled at the car and drove it home. The Bentley, unsurprisingly, did not stop playing the song.

Later in the week, Crowley was back to one of his usual spots, dozing in his serpent form, when the girl--Mackenzie--came back. He liked her as much as he liked humans. She reminded him of Aziraphale and letting her stroke him and tell him what a lovely handsome boy he was let him indulge in the fantasy that Aziraphale would say those things and that he would mean them. When she pulled her phone out and took a photo of herself next to Crowley, he may have hissed a little, but she didn’t seem to mind, murmuring something about how he was too beautiful not to be shown off and taking another selfie. 

On her way out she waved to Aziraphale, who looked a bit better since his evening in. Crowley wanted to say something, but he’d already pushed it a bit bringing the angel scones and suggesting a bath and miracling his bed nice and warm. He didn’t want to be obvious about his affections, especially knowing that Aziraphale could never think of him that way. If he could, perhaps Crowley could indulge in all the fantasies he imagined, not even the sexual ones, not that he would complain if those were also on the table. He could sit beside the tub and wash Aziraphale’s hair or wrap him up in several horrible tartan afghans and bring him tea exactly the way he liked it so Aziraphale would give him that smile, the one that made him feel like he did when he was an angel forming the stars in the heavens, like he was glowing and good and beautiful. 

Aziraphale also felt better, the bath and tea had done him a world of good. He’d read all the Miss Marple mysteries and listened to Johann Strauss II and eaten his treats. Seeing Crowley coiled up around Mackenzie’s arm as she snapped photos seemed to erase some of that good. It wasn’t like him to be melancholy, though, and he had plenty to do anyhow. At least it would be chilly soon, and then he could use his heated blanket and lure Crowley into his lap with the promise of warmth. It may have been a little pathetic, but it was better than nothing.


	17. Penny O.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY.

**Penny O.**

Chicago, IL

87 friends

557 reviews

16 photos

Caught the owner snogging some hot twink behind the cookbooks. Well done, my dude.

______________________

Six thousand years was a long time to know someone. It was a long time by nearly any unit of measure and Crowley and Aziraphale had been...something for that long. Their friendship had begun in Rome or perhaps in Greece or Paris or if you were generous with the term ‘friendship’, perhaps as early as Golgotha. Crowley had been in love with Aziraphale for all six thousand of those years. Aziraphale had loved more slowly; first in the way that angels love everything because it’s what they’re made to do, then more fondly as a companion, eventually a friend, then something closer than friendship but not romantic, the way you can be comfortable with someone after a few thousand years. He’d realized that he was in love with a demon, with his companion of over five thousand years in 1941 as he held a case of books that Crowley had pulled from the rubble of a bombed church. 

There were no indicators that Crowley loved him, and Aziraphale was fine with that, in the sort of way that you can be fine with accepting your second choice of dessert because they’re all out of the first. They’d known each other six thousand years, he’d have noticed a behavior change in that time, but Crowley was the same as he always was--charming, funny, clever, wicked enough to be a demon but deep down a bit of a good person--there were no love-letters or sending of flowers or cards on special days to indicate affection. Anyhow, as far as the angel was concerned, a romantic relationship was off the table. Before the Apocal-oops, it would have been too dangerous for anyone, Heaven or Hell, to get the slightest hint that he was in love with a demon. There would be disciplinary measures for him, most certainly, but Crowley’s side was less inclined to go with a firm reprimand and a thousand years of desk work and jump straight to destroying him in a number of painful and horrifying ways. So with the understanding that Crowley didn’t feel the same way about him, Aziraphale kept the stiff upper lip that the English so favored and continued with their cliches by keeping calm (or as calm as he could considering his temperament) and carried on. After the Apocal-oops, it wasn’t off the table because of danger to himself or Crowley--they were on their own side, after all--but because simply put, Crowley wasn’t interested.

The chill in the air was becoming more prominent and Aziraphale had gotten out the electric blanket from the cupboard and switched it on one night when he closed the shop. Once the doors were locked, the windows covered, and the lights turned out, he settled into the sofa and spread it over his lap. It would have been nice to have Crowley there as well, in whatever form he preferred, with his head in Aziraphale’s lap or his scaly body curled around his middle like an embrace, but the demon had better things to do than sit around a musty old bookshop with him. He opened his romance novel and sighed to himself. 

Many humans thought little of the romance novel and dismissed it as ‘for women’, which was problematic in and of itself, but also for being formulaic or unrealistic or a half-dozen other nonsense reasons. Aziraphale loved them. He loved that they were required to have a happy ending, that no matter what happened, the main characters would finish their story in contentment. There weren’t enough happy stories in the world. He liked that they were about love and all the ways it came about, the twisting and rambling path taken to get to happiness. And if he was honest with himself, he liked the bits where the main characters got to express their love physically. Dramatic declarations of love were his favorite, but he enjoyed reading about holding hands and kissing, about the gentle way a palm could caress a cheek or a hip. He liked reading about making love. That wasn’t always what they called it, mind, but there was no better term for it in his opinion. Humans let their bodies say what was in their hearts, and two became one. It was beautiful, truly. It wasn’t the sort of thing he talked about with anyone, considering that Heaven might frown on what they might call ‘materials for the purposes of inciting lust’ and the only person he would talk to about it--Crowley--would be utterly uninterested. He’d stopped waxing poetic about books to Crowley some time ago after realizing that the demon wasn’t listening, or was just listening to be polite. He didn’t want to bore Crowley, that would be terrible manners. 

The novel was one he’d read before--he had his favorites, after all. When he finished it, he picked up Pride and Prejudice and began to re-read it as well. Miss Austen had been such a charming young thing, clever and bitingly witty but ultimately melancholy. Crowley would have liked her; she had strong opinions and while she was polite enough in society groups, with family and close friends and in letters she could be brilliantly sharp, cutting facades and nonsense to pieces with a few penstrokes. Pride and Prejudice was his favorite of her works, and he read it as well. He didn’t sleep often and had done so already this year so once he finished the second novel, he turned off the blanket and sat at his worktable to begin mending one of the books he’d bought recently. They were in deplorable condition, but replacing the covers and rebinding them would bring back most of their original glory.

He was still at it around one the next afternoon when Crowley knocked on the doorframe, peering into Aziraphale’s back room.

“Fancy a spot of lunch?”

Aziraphale pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at Crowley.

“Goodness, is it lunchtime already? This rebinding has been absorbing, to say the least.”

“What’re you working on?”

Crowley’s gaze skimmed over everything else in the room and paused on the heated blanket before returning to Aziraphale.

“Hmm? Oh, it’s one of Milton’s. Second edition of ‘Paradise Regained’. Not as popular as ‘Paradise Lost’, but it will be a lovely volume once I finish with it.”

“Wasn’t that good of a poem, anyhow. Gave Satan credit for my work and got a lot of things wrong.”

“Humans often do,” Aziraphale replied in a tone that indicated he’d made his peace with the matter. He carefully tied off the last thread and put a touch of glue on the cut end of it to keep it from unraveling before setting the project down and covering it.

“Lunch,” Crowley prompted and the angel nodded.

They sat in a cafe next to a couple who upon ordering, couldn’t help telling the waitress that they had just gotten engaged. They held hands and each woman kept looking at the other like she had never seen anything more incredible than her partner next to her. 

“Oh, how nice,” Aziraphale said, trying to keep the longing from his voice.

Crowley snorted. It was easier to keep on the mask of nonchalance and scorn than it was to try and conceal how looking at people happily in love felt a little like being punched in the gut.

The angel shot him a disapproving look and he shrugged, gesturing at himself as though to say ‘I am what I am’. As they ate, the happy couple at the table next to them chattered excitedly about spending the rest of their lives together and eventually, Crowley stood up and tossed a handful of bills on the table.

“Let’s go.”

“I haven’t even finished my cake!”

“Take it with then.”

When they climbed into the Bentley and Queen’s ‘Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy’ came on, Crowley switched off the radio and scowled at the road as he pressed on the gas.

“I don’t know what that was all about. I thought you liked the espresso there.”

“The company left something to be desired.”

Aziraphale didn’t have time to look miffed before Crowley waved a hand at him.

“Not you, angel. The table next to us.”

“I thought it was sweet.”

“You would.”

They pulled up to the bookshop and Aziraphale unlocked the door, holding it open as Crowley stormed inside.

“I don’t understand what you’re so upset about, dear boy. They’d just gotten engaged.”

“Yes, I heard.”

The demon stalked through the shop, not entirely sure where he was going, but too restless to be still. 

“Well, what’s wrong with getting engaged? They love each other, I could feel it very clearly. They’re excited about their future, is all.”

“Must be nice for them,” Crowley practically spat, and realized that he’d stalked himself into a corner. He was surrounded on all sides by cookbooks and when he turned to get out and keep walking, Aziraphale was standing there with his arms crossed.

“I imagine it will be yes. What on earth is the matter with you?”

“Nothing. Nothing is the matter.”

The angel was a little pink in the face but he stood his ground.

“Crowley, you explain yourself this minute.”

The demon resisted the urge to flash his fangs and instead spat out,

“Don’t you ever get angry, knowing you’ll never get that?”

“Engaged?” Aziraphale asked, baffled.

“To be in love! Six thousand years and we saved the bloody planet but there isn’t going to be that for us. We won’t get to fall in love and go through all the silly rituals humans have, like sleeping next to the person you love at night, like celebrating each year you’re together, like holding hands in cafes and irritating passer-by with how stupidly in love we are!”

Aziraphale took a moment to process all of this, sucking his lower lip between his teeth and worrying at it gently.

“We’re in love?” He finally said.

Crowley swallowed and looked as though he was going to be sick.

“Angel, I--I’m sorry, that’s not what I--”

“You love me?”

His face was so open, eyes so large and blue and shining that Crowley couldn’t bring himself to lie. Not to that question and not from Aziraphale. He swallowed and nodded, avoiding the angel’s gaze.

“I know that you don’t feel that way and I swear, I’ll never bring it up again but--”

And then Aziraphale was inches away from him, looking terrified and something else.

“Say it.”

Crowley gulped.

“Please don’t make me.”

It was the ‘please’ that caught him and Aziraphale reached out to take Crowley’s hand. The demon flinched violently when their hands met, tried to jerk it away. Aziraphale’s grip held firm.

“I will, then. I love you, Crowley.”

His head shot up and he stared into Aziraphale’s face. The angel removed Crowley’s sunglasses with the hand not currently holding the demon’s. Looking him into his golden eyes, he repeated himself.

“I love you. I have known I loved you since 1941. Before that, even, but that was when I knew.”

Crowley’s voice was hoarse, like he’d been screaming.

“Since 1941?”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to say it. I was so afraid of what might happen to you if anyone ever knew. I couldn’t imagine existing here without you. I--”

Crowley’s mouth pressed against his and Aziraphale stopped talking in favor of kissing him back. Crowley’s mouth was soft and hungry and he pulled away after a minute or two.

“Since Eden.”

“What?”

“The first rain, you held your wing up to keep me dry. You’d given your sword to protect Adam and Eve and there you were sheltering me from the rain, because it was a kind thing to do. Because it didn’t occur to you to be anything other than kind, even to a demon. Even to me.”

“Of course to you. You’re beautiful and clever and brave and wonderful and I didn’t know that yet---how could I? We’d only just met. But Crowley, if there was anyone in the world I’d shelter under my wings, it would be you.”

Somehow, Aziraphale’s back was pressed against the cookbooks and Crowley was kissing him again, less gently now. The angel took a moment to figure out this new way of kissing with open mouths and occasional teeth or tongue, but Crowley was a superb teacher. He cupped the back of Aziraphale’s neck with one hand as his hips pressed him against the bookshelf, holding him in place. His other hand was bunched in the angel’s waistcoat, fingers curled around a handful of fawn-colored fabric.

In any other circumstance, Aziraphale would have protested the treatment of his waistcoat but he was too busy learning Crowley’s mouth. His hands didn’t know what to do for the first moment but they dug into Crowley’s back, curled around his shoulderblades where his wings would be if they appeared on this plane of existence. When he squeezed, Crowley gasped into his mouth before taking Aziraphale’s lower lip between his teeth and slowly dragging it down before releasing it.

“Zira,” he murmured and Aziraphale clutched at him tighter.

“Crowley,” he answered between frantic kisses. There were a few other words said, mostly ‘I love you’, back and forth when they paused to gasp for air that neither of them technically needed, but the whole afternoon was spent kissing. After the first hour or so, Crowley pulled Aziraphale into the back room and only paused long enough for the angel to snap his fingers, miracling the shop all closed up and the lone browser ejected onto the sidewalk with no idea how they’d gotten there.

Crowley drank in the sight of his angel sitting on the sofa, eyes shining, cheeks flushed, lips pink and plush from kissing. He climbed into Aziraphale’s lap and continued kissing him, occasionally straying from his mouth to kiss his neck, gently bite an earlobe or the junction of his shoulder and throat. They had time to make up for, after all. Six thousand years was a long time to know someone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed this marathon of writing and I do have every intention of writing Parts 2 and 3 based on the creations of ItsClydeBitches. I am, however, also working on writing a novel of my own and have a few more fics in the attic that I've been meaning to dust off. I'll make the fics for 2 and 3 into series with this one to make them easier to track down once I begin them. Thank you so much for all the comments and kudos, they really do mean the world to me. 
> 
> Wishing all of you the best,
> 
> IneffableFangirl_Writes


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